Michael Kearney

My research integrates biological and physical principles to understand what limits the distribution and abundance of organisms. It involves a combination of field work, laboratory measurements and computation. Through this work I aim to understand the environments that organisms directly experience (microclimates), how that translates to their body temperature and water requirements (biophysical ecology) and how that alters their survival, growth, development and reproduction (metabolism). Because this approach is 'mechanistic' rather than 'descriptive', it can allow strong inferences to be made about what will happen in novel environments. This is critical to understand what will happen to species under climate change or when they invade new places. Applications of my group's work include fundamental science, conservation biology and pest/disease management.

I have a parallel research program on the evolution of parthenogenesis, the phenomenon of reproduction without sex. The distributions of such species are biased towards high latitudes, high altitudes or arid environments. For instance, in the Australian arid zone, we find multiple cases of parthenogenesis in lizards, insects and plants. Parthenogenetic organisms are often are also very often hybrids. I am trying to solve evolutionary and ecological puzzles about parthenogenetic species to better understand the advantages of sexual reproduction, and the biogeographic and ecological forces that have shaped Australia's arid zone.