Natalie Schmitt BSc (Hons), PhD Candidate

Expertise and research interests

My honours research focused on marsupial cognition and how marsupials respond behaviourally to introduced predators. Using classical conditioning and the quokka (Setonix brachyurus) as a model species my aim was to develop training techniques that give captive-reared animals appropriate skills to cope with introduced predators after reintroduction in to the wild.

After a lengthy break from science to concentrate on documentary making, I became interested in the development of minimally invasive and non-invasive methods for revealing the biology of rare or elusive species. This in turn led to an interest in the rapidly progressing fields of molecular ecology and population genetics.

The focus of my PhD rsearch is to develop nuclear genetic markers, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), to investigate population structure, distribution and contemporary abundance of the eastern and western breeding populations of Australian humpback whales. SNP markers have the potential to measure subtle differences in humpback population structure as well as overcoming some of the technological and analytical limitations found in other genetic markers.

I am also interested if humpback whale populations, now recovering from the intensive whaling that occurred throughout most of the 20th century, display biased sex ratios as predicted by evolutionary theory and displayed by other fluctuating mammalian populations.

I hope the results of my studies will improve our understanding of these animals and contribute to the conservation management of these cetaceans as they recover from severe depletion.

Selected publications

McLean, I.G., Schmitt, N.T. 1999. Copulatory behaviour in the quokka Setonix brachyurus. Australian Mammalogy 21: 139-142.

McLean, I.G., Cameron, E.Z., Linklater, W., Schmitt, N.T., Pulskamp, K. Partnerships in the mating system of a small macropod marsupial, the quokka (Setonix brachyurus). (Subm. to Animal Behaviour).

McLean, I.G., Schmitt, N.T., Jarman, P.J., Duncan, C., Wynne, C.D.L. 2000. Learning for Life: training marsupials to cope with introduced predators. Behaviour 137:1361-1376.