Sharon Downes is an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Botany and Zoology at the Australian National University. Her research concentrates on animal behaviour that has implications for conservation.

I am a behavioural ecologist with a keen interest in conservation biology. I started out working on mammals but most of my research these days is on reptiles. My work combines field studies with more detailed and controlled experiments in outdoor enclosures and the lab. My past research concentrated on predator-prey interactions between snakes and lizards. My present work looks at how weed invasion affects the thermal biology of lizards and what implications these shifts in behaviour have for growth, survival and reproduction.

Actually, I didn't become interested in biology until the second year of my Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Melbourne. That's when the biology subjects that I was taking for my undergraduate degree started to become fun and interesting.

At the end of Secondary School I wanted to be a Vet Nurse, but I didn't complete the subjects required to enter TAFE. So I repeated my final year at Secondary School with a major in science. By now I decided that chiropracting for horses would be fun, but my application for that course was rejected. I accepted my next option which was a Bachelor of Science Degree at the University of Melbourne. Momentarily, I thought that I would be a Vet, but in my First Year I failed Chemistry, fumbled through Mathematics, and hated Physics. That left Biology, and in Second Year I was forced to take Botany, Zoology and Genetics. At that point I discovered that plants and animals led pleasantly puzzling lives, and became interested in making biology my career.

I completed a three-year Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Melbourne, majoring in botany, zoology and genetics. Honours is the fourth year of the degree and focuses on a specific research project in your area of interest. I looked at whether native mammals in northeastern Victoria used the linear strips of vegetation alongside roads ("corridors") as habitat. Upon finishing my degree, I hit the volunteer biologist circuit that took me, among other places, to the deserts of South Australia. It was there that I first conversed with reptiles. For the rest of that year, I worked on the reproductive biology of marsupial mice as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne. These experiences inspired me to begin a PhD. In July 1996 I moved to the University of Sydney, and spent the following three years working on the behavioural ecology of predator-prey interactions between snakes and lizards for my PhD study.

Sharon holding lots of one of her study animals, Lampropholis guichenoti or the common garden skink

• Project design and management
• Reading the latest scientific and trade journals
• Corresponding with colleagues
• Writing proposals, reports and journal articles
• Fieldwork and experiments
• Animal husbandry
• Supervising students

• Written, graphic and oral presentation/communication skills
• Listening/counselling/advising
• Project design and management
• Statistical analysis
• Animal care
• Personnel management
• Organisation

I am free to choose how and what I spend my time doing and the research that I conduct. The two things I enjoy most about my job are working with animals, and interacting with students. I enjoy designing experiments to address questions concerning the behaviour of animals, but even more I like observing the animals directly and trying to understand why they do the things they do. I also like going into the field to collect the animals. My position is entirely research based but I choose to supervise students and be involved in tutoring for certain courses. I enjoy passing on knowledge and helping others and interacting with students that get excited about the same things that I like.

Sharon scanning the body of a juvenile Acanthophis antarcticus or common death adder with a Lixi X-Ray scope to determine what type of lizard prey it has recently consumed.

I never get bored of watching the behaviour of animals first hand. I also find analysing data exciting because (if you are lucky) it provides answers to your research questions and satisfies your curiosity. Of course, it usually also leads to several other questions and further research directions.

I don't enjoy the politics, administrative paperwork, and administrative meetings that go along with being a research scientist. I think that it is unfortunate that publications are the currency of a research scientist (hence, the saying "publish or perish") because it forces them to conduct conservative short-term research.

• Science writer
• Environmental consultant
• Project coordinator
• Science teacher/communicator
• National Parks and Wildlife Officer

One of the biggest advantages of being an animal biologist is that you get to work outdoors a lot and travel to remote and inaccessible places to collect animals for your research. You become more aware of the environment that you live in and travel in which leads to a richer appreciation of life on earth.

One of the biggest disadvantages of being an animal biologist is the vast effort that goes into caring for animals once you bring them back to the lab to do experiments. Even if you take great care to maintain your animals well, deaths inevitably occur occasionally. Personally, I find that difficult to deal with. There also is a lot of paperwork to go through to get permits and Animal Care and Ethics approval for projects to be completed on animals.

As well as having conservation implications, my research is designed to test controversial theories in biology and fill gaps in our knowledge of certain phenomena. For instance, my current work on lizard-weed interactions tests an important theory about how animals might trade-off increasing their basking frequency (to cope with the lower sunlight levels in weeded areas) and spending less time on other important behaviours (like feeding and mating).

My work has benefited society in two main ways. First, it has made people aware of the fascinating behaviour of animals. In particular, reptiles are often neglected (and even despised) by people because they are seen as being ugly, scaly and dangerous rather than cute and furry. I hope that my work has highlighted that these animals really are quite remarkable. Second, some of my research deals directly with the conservation of animals in disturbed environments. For instance, my honours work demonstrated that roadside corridors are important habitat for native mammals in fragmented landscapes.

To be honest, I am not entirely sure. I am a short-term planner. At the moment I am enjoying what I do and will continue to try and obtain employment in this field as long as I am happy. But I know that unless I obtain a Faculty position, it will become more and more difficult to win future Postdoctoral Fellowships. This is because the further down the Postdoctoral trail I get the tougher the competition will be. If a Faculty position came up in the right place then I probably would apply for it. The only thing I don't like about becoming a lecturer is the increased time that I must spend doing the few things that I don't like about my job: dealing with politics, administrative paperwork, and administrative meetings.

If you wish to ask Sharon for additional information, you can email UniServe Science and we will contact Sharon for you. Make sure you include Sharon's name and occupation in the Subject line.

You can find out more about Sharon's work from the her web site.

Find out some interesting facts about lizards

Find out how you might become involved with reptile conservation

Striped Legless lizard Delma impar from University of Canberra

The Reptiles of NSW Wetlands - Lizards - from Department of Natural Resources

Victorian Lizards - from Museum of Victoria

Lizards of Tasmania - from Parks and Wildlife Service

AmphibiaWeb - from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley

Find out how you might become involved with reptile research

LososLabLinks - links to laboratories in the USA that are studying herpetology

AERG Herpetology Page from Applied Ecology Research Group, University of Canberra

Australian Society of Herpetologists

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