Dr Jenny Ovenden from the DPI’s Agency for Food and Fibre Sciences, (Fisheries and Aquaculture), recently consulted with international fisheries genetics experts in the United States, Canada, Norway and Britain during her 2002 Winston Churchill Fellowship.

 Dr Ovenden, the head of the Molecular Fisheries Laboratory at the Southern Fisheries Centre, Deception Bay was able to meet and work with leading fisheries scientists and geneticists in order to investigate new methods to estimate the size of fisheries resources using population genetics.

 She said international fisheries geneticists advised that her DPI research studying tiger prawn populations in Moreton Bay was at the cutting edge of world fisheries genetics research and fisheries resource management. 

 “The program is groundbreaking because our research teams are actively working out the methodology, the actual nuts and bolts measures and procedures, to effectively estimate population size estimates of Moreton Bay tiger prawns, Spanish mackerel and other Australian fisheries resources,” Dr Ovenden said. 

 “Fisheries stock assessment scientists use computer models of fish populations to guide fisheries managers. There are few methods of validating outputs of the models and collecting the biological data on which the model is based is expensive and time consuming,” Dr Ovenden said

 She said the Churchill Fellowship had enabled her to study the latest research that supported the development of independent alternatives to stock assessment modeling which would give better estimates about fish spawning from genetic information collected from population samples.

 Dr Ovenden said she was able to closely evaluate the latest research techniques in Europe and North America to determine their suitability for adoption for Australian fish and marine resource studies.

 She said she learnt new ways to communicate the concepts of effective population size of fisheries to scientists, the Queensland Fisheries Service, other government departments and the local community. They could be advised on the state of the resource and whether or not changes to management strategies were required and likely to be sustainable.

 The Churchill Trust has awarded over 2500 Fellowships since being established in 1965.

The Fellowships average about $20 000 each and recipients spend about eight weeks overseas.

 Further Information:    Dr Jenny Ovenden    07 3817 9500