James Cook University has received more than $4.3 million in research grants, to fund work including the impact of ocean acidification on marine health, and degraded reefs.

The grants, announced by the Minister for Education Christopher Pyne on Friday, form part of the ARC’s Future Fellowships scheme and major grants schemes.

Professor Philip Munday will receive almost $1 million between now and 2017 for his work on the long-term impacts of ocean acidification on marines fish and fisheries.

Dr Susan Laurance’s grant of $680,00 will be used in a globally unique experiment to determine how rainforests will respond if droughts increase in the future.

A number of the JCU grants reflect the University’s important role into creating a brighter future for life in the tropics worldwide, including:

• Using cave guano to understand vegetation change throughout the islands of South East Asia;
• Improving the community-managed networks of no-take marine reserves in the Coral Triangle Region to the north of Australia;
• Research aimed at understanding the social mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific region relating to the benefits of transnational seafood commodity chains; and
• Studying the global problem of ageing populations by looking at how transnational Papua New Guinean families plan for old age.

With a grant of $435,000, Professor David Bellwood will lead research to find ways to restore degraded reefs, and Professor Geoff Jones will use his Discovery funding of $434,000 to provide the first insights into how coral reef fish diversity responds to increased subdivision and isolation of reef habitat.