Dr Linette Umbrello
Meet Linette, the 2023 recipient of the President’s ECR Award, and Assistant Secretary/Newsletter Editor for AMS
Measuring northern quoll skulls during my PhD
What is your job?
Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Queensland University of Technology
Tell us about your background:
I was born in Perth and grew up in the historic wheatbelt town of York where at the age of eight my family moved to a 100 acre “hobby farm” about 20 kms from town in an area known as Quellington. Among the paddocks of wheat and sheep were patches of remnant bush where wildflowers bloomed in winter and evidence of echidnas and possums could be found if you knew where to look. After school I’d go horse riding or walking through the bush with the dog and my cat, who was a brilliant mouser and brought home a fat-tailed dunnart one night—my first close encounter with a dasyurid. I became obsessed with snakes at about age 10 at which point I was determined to become a zoologist so I could study them.
What interesting research/projects have you worked on?
During my PhD studies and beyond my research has focussed on the evolution of small dasyurid marsupials in arid environments. I like working on small, lesser-known species that don’t receive much research attention, it amazes me that they have and continue to persist throughout altered landscapes where so many other marsupial species have recently gone extinct. They are also absolutely ferocious, despite being tiny and I admire their tenacity.
What are your current projects?
I’m currently working on two different projects. The first is tackling undescribed diversity in some of Australia’s smallest marsupials, the planigales and stripe-faced dunnarts. I use genetic and morphological data to delimit species in these two groups and examine specimens to write species descriptions. The other project has a more direct conservation focus and involves using genetic and spatial data to help understand the movement and habitat suitability of threatened bats in the Pilbara.
Examining the remains of a stick-nest rat nest at Mt Bruce 2015
What do you consider are some of your best achievements?
My favourite achievement happened last year which was publishing the description of two new species of Planigale from the Pilbara region in Western Australia. When I started working as a Technical Officer at the WA Museum in 2011, I became aware of two undescribed species of planigale while undertaking an audit of the dry mammal collection. I was surprised to learn that there were new species of mammals in Australia that were undescribed and not known to the general public (beginners naïveté!). The manuscript names for the two species, now published (Planigale kendricki and P. tealei), were burning a hole in my brain ever since as I understood the urgency to publish the descriptions given the huge amount of survey work being routinely undertaken in the Pilbara. So, I am glad that is done!
What is your favourite activity in mammalogy?
I will list my three top mammal activities. First is working with live mammals in the field, nothing compares to peering into a pitfall trap and seeing a black-eyed pointy-nosed dasyurid staring back at you. The second is the first time analysing new molecular data, it is like opening your presents on Christmas morning, you don’t know what surprises you will have (hopefully not all contaminated with human DNA!). The third would be working with specimens, I know this can be seen as iky to some, but as someone who often collected bits of dead things (skulls) or shed things (feathers and snake skins) as a kid, being able to work with preserved museum specimens is such a special experience. Every specimen contains multitudes of information enabling us to understand the natural world, from where they live to what they look like, what they eat to who they are related to, how they reproduce etc. For the unfortunate extinct species, museum specimens are often all we have left, reminding us of what was and a warning for the future.
Releasing a northern brown bandicoot at Yampi Peninsula 2022
Do you have an interesting “mammal anecdote”?
The first field trip I went on as a museum staff member was a survey of the reptile fauna of the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of WA near Geraldton. There are two native mammals on the islands, the bush rat and the tammar wallaby. Historically there were no tammars on North Island (the northern-most island of the Abrolhos) but they were supposedly introduced by cray fishers as a food source. We surveyed the islands in the off season (for cray fishing) and all of the houses and buildings on the islands were empty giving the appearance of ghost towns. The tammars were not particularly wary of us, being an island population with no real predators. While searching for skinks on North Island I noticed a tammar hop into a small concrete yard attached to a shanty. Quietly I crept behind and closed the gate behind me so that it could not escape, it was then as simple as waiting for it to hop over to a corner, whereby I gabbed it by the tail and took it back to show my very surprised supervisor! An ear sample was taken for genetic analysis and the wallaby released unharmed.
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