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Postdocs and Researchers
Luke Shoo
Postdoctoral Researcher, Herpetology(currently a postdoc with Steve Williams, James Cook University)
Predicting and detecting the impacts of climate change on montane fauna in Australian tropical rainforests. Molecular systematics, conservation and population genetics of Australian Agamid lizards.
I have a strong interest in developing a better understanding of the potential impacts of contemporary climate change on tropical rainforest biodiversity. In particular I am interested in determining: (1) what prospects the many unique, cool adapted mountain-top species of the tropics have in a warming world; and (2) what data we need to collect now if we want to be able to document and understand species responses to climate change in the future. Both issues are concerned with species' distribution limits and the underlying historical and contemporary processes responsible for them.
More recently I have joined Museum Victoria where I am utilising molecular techniques to resolve taxonomic uncertainty and identify distribution limits of species within the Australian agamid lizard genus Tympanocryptis. The investigation will contribute to an understanding of environmental and historical factors underpinning patterns of species differentiation in arid environments within Australia.
Publications
Shoo, L.P., Williams, Y., Hero, J.-M. (2006) Predicting and detecting the impacts of climate change on montane birds in Australian tropical rainforests. In: Global Change in Mountain Regions (ed. M.F Price). Sapiens Publishing, UK.Hero, J.-M., Morrison, C., Gillespie, G., Roberts, J.D., Newell, D., Meyer, E., McDonald, K., Lemckert, F., Mahony, M., Osborne, W., Hines, H., Richards, S., Hoskin, C., Clarke, J., Doak, N. and Shoo, L.P. Overview of the conservation status of Australian Frogs. Pacific Conservation Biology - in press.
Hero, J.-M., Hamada, N. and Shoo, L.P. Reproductive and population ecology of four species of Phyllomedusa in Central Amazonian Rainforest. Acta Amazonica - in press.
Shoo, L.P., Williams, S.E. and Hero, J.-M. (2006). Detecting climate change induced range shifts: where and how should we be looking? Austral Ecology 31, 22-29.
Shoo, L.P., Williams, S.E. and Hero, J.-M. (2005a). Potential decoupling of trends in distribution area and population size of species with climate change. Global Change Biology 11, 1469-1476.
Shoo, L.P., Williams, S.E. and Hero, J.-M. (2005b). Climate warming and rainforest birds of the Wet Tropics: using abundance data as a sensitive predictor of change in total population size. Biological Conservation 125, 335-343.
Shoo, L.P. and Williams, Y. (2004). Altitudinal distribution and abundance of microhylid frogs (Cophixalus and Austrochaperina) of north-eastern Australia: baseline data for detecting biological responses to future climate change. Australian Journal of Zoology 52, 667-676.
Hero, J-M., Morrison, C., Gillespie, G., Roberts, D., Horner, P., Newell, D., Meyer, E., McDonald, K., Lemckert, F., Mahony, M., Tyler, M., Osborne, W., Hines, H., Richards, S., Hoskin, C., Doak, N. and Shoo, L. (2004). Conservation status of Australian frogs. Froglog 65, 2-3.
Hero, J-M. and Shoo, L.P. (2003). Conservation of amphibians in the old world tropics: defining unique problems associated with a regional fauna. In: Amphibian Conservation (ed. R.D. Semlitsch). Smithsonian Books, Washington.