Episode 138: Ella Clausius (IMAS)

Craig's interview guest in this episode is Ella Clausius, who is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Reef Ecology at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania.  Ella talks of her Bachelor of Science degree in Antarctic Science and Zoology at IMAS and of her 7 week trip to Antarctica on RV Aurora Australis.  She also describes her Honours project in which she studied five decades of historical data on the size of Southern Elephant Seal pups at weaning, in populations on Heard and Macquarie Islands, investigating the possible reasons underlying declines in those populations. We also hear Ella talk of her several years as Communications Officer for Reef Life Survey, a program that trains everyday SCUBA divers around the globe in scientific methods for recording marine life underwater and whose data is being used by scientists to track how the health of Australia’s reefs, and those in other regions of the world, are changing through time. And she relates the outcomes of the various chapters of her PhD (her thesis currently being assessed) which investigated the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Australia and globally as a measure for conserving fish populations.