Welcome to the Gillanders Aquatic Ecology lab webpage and recent news.

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Another year to reflect on and one to look forward to as we become Adelaide University.

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In 2025 we saw many people come and go. The algal bloom dramatically changed marine ecosystems here in South Australia with both Patrick and Bronwyn picking up fish from citizen science collectors and coordinating with government. This activity provided plenty of opportunities for undergraduate student internships with Steven, Ruby and Alex all helping out with cataloguing, measurements and dissections. Joe completed his PhD and was a postdoc in the group before taking up a postdoctoral position at SPC in New Caledonia – we are continuing to do some work with him. Nikita also completed her PhD focused on microplastics in the marine environment. Danni, Maddy, and Josie all continued as PhD students – Josie will shortly submit her PhD on mislabelling and trade of shark products in Australia. Rex is also about to submit his PhD on floodplain fishes of the lower Murray including control options for carp. Chloe had a one year postdoctoral appointment in the lab focused on a Goyder Institute funded project investigating ecological responses to climate extremes in the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth region – she’s now headed to Sydney. It’s always great seeing our students return for their graduations either in April or September.

 

Thirun completed his Hons project in mid 2025 and has returned to Sri Lanka – we are hoping to see him back for a PhD. Isaac (working on cephalopods), Andrew (working on microplastics in the oyster industry) and Chantelle (based in School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences) all completed their Hons research projects at the end of the year. Isaac has moved to a position at SARDI Aquatic Sciences and Andrew is returning as a PhD student. Thomas commenced his Hons research project on mulloway growth in mid 2025. In 2026 we have three new Hons students commencing, Steven, Ella and Erin. With the new University there are now also options for Master of Research degrees – we have two students commencing this degree, Lily and Ava, both working in the microplastics space.

 

2025 saw the group produce a good number of publications which are featured on our Publications 2025 page – Sophie D and Josie’s first PhD papers came out. Jorge, Charlotte, Clement, Jackson, An and Joe were all students or visiting researchers whose publications came out. Nina and Patrick also had research published. Some international collaborations included the paper led by Ted Henry (from Scotland but involving an international group) that Nina and Bronwyn were involved in, one led by Robert Lennox (Norway/Canada, involving Bronwyn), another led by Edy Setyawan (Indonesia involving Ben and Bronwyn), several led by Susanne Tanner (Portugal) involving Patrick. Also worth noting is the publication on microplastics in Sri Lankan fish that was part of Vinuri’s Honours research. There is also a 2026 publication from a American Fisheries Society meeting and followup collaboration.

 

A number of us also attended Vinuri’s wedding in Sri Lanka which was pretty exciting!

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We look forward to another big year ahead with some PhD completions, lots of research happening and some great publications coming out.

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For other recent publications please see here for the 2024 publications or here for the 2025 ones.

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For some news updates see our Blog page.

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Check out our video below about the incredible science of fish ear bones made by Animate your science.