Fonti Kar

• BSc, MRes
• PhD Student at UNSW Sydney

Climate change causes warmer and more variable temperatures globally, impacting physiological rates and function in ectothermic animals. Acclimation of physiological rates can help maintain function. However, it is unresolved how variance in physiological rates changes with temperature despite its potential ecological and evolutionary importance. W...

R package implementing a hierarchical Bayesian longitudinal model for repeat observation data. The package provides a selection of differential equation models that are then fit using the hierarchical model.

The ratio of mortality to growth of larval fish provides a metric of a cohort’s “recruitment potential”. Estimating recruitment potential is arduous, requiring growth and mortality to be estimated independently. Here, we propose using the exponent of size spectrum models to indicate recruitment potential from body measurement data alone. This appro...

Here we present ‘APCalign’, an R package and accompanying browser-sourced application to align and update scientific names for Australian vascular plants to the most likely currently accepted name in the Australian Plant Census (APC) or a name in the Australian Plant Names Index (APNI). Scientific names are the label assigned to unique taxon concep...

Climate change is expected to result in warmer and more variable thermal environments globally. Greater thermal variability is expected to result in strong selection pressures leading to genetic adaptation and/or the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity. Such responses depend on genetic and phenotypic variability. However, most work has focu...

Here we present "APCalign", an R package and accompanying browser-sourced application to align and update scientific names for Australian vascular plants to the most likely currently accepted name using the Australian Plant Census (APC) or a name in the Australian Plant Names Index (APNI). Scientific names are the label assigned to unique taxon con...

Selective processes act on phenotypic variation although the evolutionary potential of a trait relies on the underlying heritable variation. Developmental plasticity is an important source of phenotypic variation, but it can also promote changes in genetic variation, yet we have a limited understanding of how they are both impacted. Here, we quanti...

Selective processes act on phenotypic variation yet the evolutionary potential of any given trait relies on underlying heritable variation. Developmental plasticity is an important source of phenotypic variation, but it can also promote changes in heritability by modifying environmental sources of variability. Here, we quantified the influence of d...

Selective processes act on phenotypic variation yet the evolutionary potential of any given trait relies on underlying heritable variation. Developmental plasticity is an important source of phenotypic variation, but it can also promote changes in heritability by modifying environmental sources of variability. Here, we quantified the influence of d...

Phenotypic plasticity is an important mechanism that allows populations to adjust to changing environments. Early life experiences can have lasting impacts on how individuals respond to environmental variation later in life (i.e., individual reaction norms), altering the capacity for populations to respond to selection. Here, we incubated lizard em...

We introduce the AusTraits database - a compilation of values of plant traits for taxa in the Australian flora (hereafter AusTraits). AusTraits synthesises data on 448 traits across 28,640 taxa from field campaigns, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions. Traits vary in scope from physiological measures of per...

Phenotypic plasticity is an important mechanism that allows populations to adjust to changing environments. Plastic responses induced by early life experiences can have lasting impacts on how individuals respond to environmental variation later in life (i.e., reversible plasticity). Developmental environments can also influence repeatability of pla...

Physiological processes vary widely across individuals and can influence how individuals respond to environmental change. Repeatability in how metabolic rate changes across temperatures (i.e. metabolic thermal plasticity) can influence mass‐scaling exponents in different thermal environments. Moreover, repeatable plastic responses are necessary for...

Sexual selection shapes the adaptive landscape in complex ways that lead to trait integration. Much of our understanding of selection comes from studies of morphological traits. However, few studies attempt to quantify the form and direction of selection on performance even though it is predicted to be a more direct target of selection in nature. W...

1.Physiological processes of individuals can be highly variable and there is mounting evidence that individuals can differ in how they respond to environmental change. The ability for individuals to reversibly adjust their metabolic rate in response to temperature (i.e., metabolic thermal plasticity) may affect mass-scaling at the population level....

Social learning is widespread among family living species, particularly mammals and birds with relatively high levels of social complexity and overt social interaction. However, the occurrence of social learning has never been documented in lizards with kin-based sociality, which have less obvious social interactions. We tested for social learning...

Many trait measurements are size-dependent, and while we often divide these traits by size before fitting statistical models to control for the effect of size, this approach does not account for allometry and the intermediate outcome problem. We describe these problems and outline potential solutions. Electronic supplementary material The online v...

There is mounting evidence that social learning is not just restricted to group-living animals, but also occurs in species with a wide range of social systems. However, we still have a poor understanding of the factors driving individual differences in social information use. We investigated the effects of relative dominance on social information u...

An individual’s contest history can have a significant effect on their probability of winning a future contest. These winner–loser effects are likely to be mediated by the level of escalation in a contest, although this is rarely considered in the contest literature. We staged contests between size-matched male water skinks (Eulamprus quoyii) in a...

Members of Neocypholaelaps are pollenophagous and phoretic on a range of hosts. In New Zealand, Neocypholaelaps novaehollandiae Evans have been previously collected on native bellbirds and honeybees. The lack of information about this species triggered our interest in its life history and behaviour. We sampled mites from flowers of the nīkau palm (...