Laura’s current research involves studying the effects that disease has on reproduction in a declining native Australian amphibian species, the alpine tree frog. She is interested in how animals cope with and continue to persist in the face of devastating disease.
One mechanism of population persistence is increased reproductive effort. She aims to use the knowledge from her fieldwork and experiments to improve conservation efforts for amphibians. Laura received her a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and Bachelor of Science in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2010. She went on to complete her Masters of Science in environmental biology from Tulane University in 2011 where she participated in a number of amphibian projects including clinical chemotherapy trials for treating Bd, studying non-amphibian hosts of the amphibian chytrid fungus, quantifying sub-lethal effects of disease, and determining best practice methods for marking amphibians. Laura received her Ph.D. at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland Australia in 2016. For her Ph.D. research, she explored the interactions between frogs, disease, and the management of critically endangered species. She explored pathogenesis of disease on understudied and endangered species, as well as determining mechanisms of population persistence. She hopes to be able to directly use the information generated from her research to further conservation efforts to protect Australia’s declining frog species. Laura was a postdoctoral research fellow from 2016-2018 at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Corinne Richards-Zawacki. Her research there focused on the effects of climate change on amphibian species and communities, specifically investigating the effects of pond drying on the amphibian immune system and physiology. She also explored disease dynamics in local amphibian populations through different sites and seasons in an effort to help predict impacts of disease on populations in the face of a changing environment.Laura’s research interests include amphibians, wildlife disease, endangered species, conservation, and chytridiomycosis. She is particularly interested in the mechanisms of population persistence for species declining due to disease, particularly with species and populations that have not developed an effective immune response. She is interested in the interactions between chytridiomycosis and amphibian reproduction. Laura is interested in directly combining academic research into management strategies for the protection of endangered species.
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Laura Brannelly's highlights
FEATURED Journal article
Optimized Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis DNA extraction of swab samples results in imperfect detection particularly when infection intensities are low.
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Projects
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Project Types
1
Internal Research Grant
1
Research Grant
Scholarly Works
Displaying the 34 most recent scholarly works by Laura Brannelly.
Credentials
Positions
Research Fellow, Wildlife Health (Arc Decra)
Veterinary Biosciences
Education
Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences
James Cook University of North Queensland
Conservation Biology
Tulane University
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Tulane University