Thursday, 3rd December Australian Society for Fish Biology & Australian Freshwater Sciences Society Conference 2026

• An eerily familiar warning from the past: is the Australian grayling following the New Zealand grayling’s path to extinction? - David Crook
• Reviving the Mary River Cod: Building a Coordinated Pathway for Threatened Species Recovery - Tom Espinoza
• Securing persistence through secure barriers: long-term outcomes of Barred Galaxias conservation in Victoria  - Liam Hogan
• Slashing before extended inundation controls Duma florulenta but not Phragmites australis in a Victorian floodplain wetland - Dean Karopoulos
• Do translocated frogs use and benefit from artificial disease refugia? - Aeden Maguire
• Improving conservation through genetic rescue: a case study on the Southern Pygmy Perch - Joyshri Sarker
• A Population on the Edge: Managing Tasmania's Estuary Perch - Jonah Yick
• Fish passage in the Australian tropics – the importance of providing passage for diadromous fish species - Geoff Collins

• Seasonal nutrient limitation along river gradients and implications for nutrient management   - Jing Lu
• Partial migration and local persistence sustain fish resilience in the northern Murray–Darling Basin - Kate Hodges
• The macroinvertebrate response to unregulated tributaries on a regulated river - Dane F Parsons
• Performance of a downstream fishway for short-finned eels, the Trevallyn dam downstream eel bypass - David Ikedife
• A Fin-Tastic Solution: Improving the Passage Functionality of the Mildura Weir Denil Fishway - Steven Slarke
• FISH PASSAGE AT THE MILDURA WEIR FISHWAY - Matthew Jones
• Doing the Macca Shuffle: within river translocations of Macquarie perch to overcome fragmentation and genetic munting - Mark Lintermans
• Genomic monitoring for fisheries enhancement and conservation - Chris Brauer

• Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii) breeding and behaviour in hatchery ponds - Ryan Forster
• How should you feed a fish?  - Harriet R Goodrich
• From behaviour to biomass: early enrichment enhances trout welfare and performance - Ane AJ Jonassen
• FROM BEHAVIOUR TO EARLY WARNING: AI-BASED MONITORING OF FISH WELFARE AND DISEASE RISK IN TROPICAL POND AQUACULTURE - Sunil Kadri
• Does Habitat Degradation Alter Juvenile Fish Connectivity and Habitat Use in Urbanised Coastal Ecosystems. - William H Knoke
• Flesh and Famine: Nutritional shifts in snapper with milky-white flesh syndrome - Katherine Lockton
• Post-release survival potential of fish bycatch in the reformed East Coast Inshore Fishery - Lachlan Robson
• Environmental enrichment in aquaculture: a goal-oriented framework for welfare in dynamic systems - Olivia Spiliopoulos

• Lobster phyllosoma: genomics, distribution, abundance and the influence of oceanography along 110°E in the south-eastern Indian Ocean - Lynnath E. Beckley
• Ocean warming dominates circulation-driven thermal shifts in driving opposing larval supply trends to range edges - Katie Cresswell
• Settlement of reef-fish larvae of 19 species from the larva’s point of view - Jeffrey Leis
• Trophic structure and characteristics of fast-growing larvae of Southern Bluefin Tuna in the Argo Basin spawning area off NW Australia - Michael R Landry
• Settling in: effects of natural and artificial structures in urbanised estuaries on fish settlement - Jessica JN Nguyen
• The population and community characteristics of upstream-migrating juvenile anguillid eels in a hydropower-regulated Indonesian tropical river: A case study from the Poso River, Indonesia - Vitas A. Prakoso
• Do breeding site conditions constrain reproduction of endangered brolga in southeast Australia? - Maria Bleitz
• Timing is everything: Monitoring spawning activity in Southern calamari (Sepioteuthis australis) across Tasmania in a changing environment - Katerina Charitonidou

• Niche dynamics of elasmobranchs: results from the Oceania elasmobranch stable isotope project - Vincent Raoult
• Mapping Walking Sharks: Updated distributions and a new species described from Papua New Guinea - Jessica Blakeway
• Ontogenetic shifts in the trophic ecology of shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) revealed by stable isotope analysis in temperate eastern Australia - Jane E Williamson
• Mark-recapture and chemical marking of Antarctic starry skate in the Ross Sea: insights into movement, longevity, and age validation - Brit Finucci
• Age and growth of an endemic Australian skate, Dentiraja confusa: foundation for species-specific management - Rupesh Das
• Ex situ observations reveal complex reproductive strategies in the Endangered Maugean skate (Zearaja maugeana) - Bailee Woolley
• Developing assisted reproduction technologies to augment captive conservation efforts for elasmobranch fishes   - Tina Lee
• An eye for length: Increasing the utility of citizen science observations in shark research - Alex J. C. Burton

• Cool-water thermal refugia and associated persistence of the Critically Endangered Red Handfish - Tyson Bessell
• Multi-disciplinary approach to conserving an Endangered species of seahorse (Hippocampus whitei) in South-East Queensland, Australia. - Rowan Carew
• Now you see me, now you don't: Morphological colour plasticity in the Endangered White's Seahorse - Sophie Melhuish
• After the Floods: The race to recover an Endangered seahorse species - David Harasti
• Exotic or Endangered: The Conservation Paradox of Translocated Astacopsis gouldi Population - Caitlin AM Silberberg
• Conservation translocation challenges for the Critically Endangered red handfish (Thymichthys politus)   - Jemina Stuart-Smith
• Modelling Fish Welfare Law using Artificial Intelligence - Lene Northwood

• Tracing energy pathways and habitat change: understanding impoundment impacts on Australian native small-bodied fish in the northern Murray-Darling Basin - Max Mallett
• Rethinking fishways at tidal barriers: designing for juvenile biomass. - Tim Marsden
• Baffled siphon fishways: Let’s keep it simple, smarties - Jasmin Martino
• Modern fish-protection screens in NSW: Outcomes and learnings from screening in NSW under the Northern Basin Toolkit Fish-friendly Water Extraction and Macquarie Diversion Screening programs - Anthony Moore
• Productivity Is Local: Environmental Drivers of Native Fish Growth in Impounded Ecosystems - Jack Nicholas
• Connecting the southern and northern Basins: How to crack the Menindee fish passage code. - Luke Pitman
• Novel approaches to screening at complex irrigation pump sites - Rodney Price

• Adaptive capacity in Australian fisheries management: Preliminary insights from a cross-jurisdictional learning network - Emily Ogier
• Net gains, Tasmania's sardine fishery takes shape - Nicholas Blay
• Bioregionalsation of dermsal fish and biota to inform ecological risk assessments for improved fisheries management - Joel Williams
• Agentic Artificial Intelligence for Updating Ecological Attributes in Ecological Risk Assessments of Australian Fisheries - Miriana Sporcic
• Australia's seafood imports outsource environmental and socioeconomic costs to other nations - Jonathan Smart
• Quantifying vertebrate biodiversity at a putative climate refuge in the southern Great Barrier Reef - Asia 0 Armstrong
• Accounting for Organismal Nutrition Demand Matters for Estimating Waste in Fed Aquaculture - Sowdamini Sesha Prasad

• Beyond Bones: Using Fish Otoliths to Quantify Marine Predator Diets - Bridget E Toohey
• From recruitment to redistribution: floods reshape fish populations across a regulated river network - Ivor Stuart
• Opportunities and lessons learnt from working with lesser-known calcified structures and chemical markers for tracking aquatic animals - Zoe Doubleday
• Does partial migration increase climate resilience in fish? - Patrick Reis-Santos
• Diminishing Returns: reduced riverine growth benefits of barramundi in a heavily modified landscape - Nut MUNPHOLSRI
• How does fishing affect size-at-age variability and fisheries-induced evolution potential in southern sand flathead (Platycephalus bassensis) - Sarah Burnes
• Providing contemporary age and growth estimates for Frostfish, a commercially important byproduct species. - Dylan Chung

• Developing broodstock surrogacy as a future tool  to enhance ex-situ conservation options for endangered elasmobranchs. - David Moreno
• Hatching in the dark: Photoperiod cues and developmental milestones in the epaulette shark, Hemiscyllium ocellatum - Arielle Cowton
• Mapping Hope: A Rapid Assessment of sawfish presence and Local Ecological Knowledge Across India's West Coast - Mayuresh Gangal
• Promoting safe and sustainable interactions between humans and sharks at Cocos Keeling Islands (CKI, Australia) - Victoria Camilieri-Asch
• Can large marine protected areas protect wide-ranging neritic and pelagic sharks? - Andrea Asunsolo Rivera
• Integrating genetics and telemetry reveals population demographics of bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) in southeast Queensland, Australia - Bonnie J Holmes
• Where is home? The role of natal location in shaping movement strategies in bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) - Floriaan Devloo-Delva

• From Lab to LIVE! Practical Science Communication for Early-Career Marine Researchers (and everyone else!) - Courtney Ede
• Formation of a carp action alliance - An integrated state and community driven initiative to control invasive carp where it is most needed.  - Anthony Forster
• Changing behaviour, not just regulations: diversifying recreational fishing to support fishery recovery - David Mossop
• From Interest to Impact: Tools for Turning Curiosity into Stewardship - Grace Bell
• Accounting for Cross-realm Connectivity in Spatial Conservation Planning for Coastal Freshwater Fishes   - Wonder Sekey
• Getting edgy: implications of fragmented seagrass meadows for fish assemblages - Molly Moustaka
• Spatial patterns of freshwater fish extinction risk – a global analysis - Justine I Carey

• A Life in Water: Celebrating the fish passage legacy of Garry Thorncraft - Craig Boys
• Fish protected, money saved: the shared value of modern screens - Tom Rayner
• Low cost fishway retrofit connecting Menindee Lakes and Northern Basin. - Nathan Reynoldson
• Lighting the Way: Effects of Culvert Light Regimes on Fish Passage and Behaviour - Melinda Scanlon
• The Flow-MER Border Rivers, Barwon and Namoi (BBN) fish monitoring program: fish communities in river and floodplain habitats. - Samuel J Lewis
• The battle of the predators: The impact of introduced exotic trout and redfin perch on native fish in seasonal rivers of South Australia - Renee J Smith
• Fish in a pipe! Trials and developments with the electric siphon fishway - Iain M Suthers

• Tournament Monitoring Program: a source of pelagic fish samples and recreational fishery data - Tristan Guillemin
• Fishery independent and dependant citizen science tagging methods uncover site fidelity of highly migratory species - Matthew Hammond
• Diving behaviour and habitat use of yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) toward their southern latitudinal extent - Belinda Goddard
• The reproductive biology of Western and Central Pacific Ocean Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) - Sebastien Gislard
• First biological insights to a widespread deep-water snapper Etelis coruscans off the Pacific coast of Australia - Emily A Purton
• A Fisherman’s Trash is a Stingray’s Treasure: How Recreational Fishing Waste Influences Fish and Stingray Movement - Loeva Martin-Podevin
• Variable post-capture condition estimated by visual assessment for key recreational species discarded in a nearshore marine charter fishery off eastern Australia  - Julian M Hughes

• Investigating microinvertebrate drift and entrainment: A field experiment in the Chowilla Anabranch - George Giatas
• Australian lampreys: new discoveries, hidden diversity and emerging conservation challenges - Luke Carpenter-Bundhoo
• Towards non-lethal diet assessment in a small-bodied galaxiid: insights from DNA metabarcoding - Aliati Iswantari
• Non-migratory lineages experience higher diversification rates: global evidence from salmonid fishes - Christopher P Burridge
• Towards Safer Estuarine Electrofishing: Quantifying Injury Risk Across Fish Species - Riley W Banaghan
• Colour pattern recognition and aggression in the false clown anemonefish, Amphiprion ocellaris - Noah JM Locke
• What makes an anemonefish black? Disentangling the ecological and genetic drivers of melanism in the yellowtail anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii) - Manon Mercader

• The first reference genome for stingarees: a chromosome-level assembly of the sparsely spotted stingaree (Urolophus paucimaculatus) - Nicholas Stratmann
• Linking shark fin markets to wild bull shark populations through genomic provenance tracking - Floriaan Devloo-Delva
• Navigating uncertainty and risk in gulper shark fisheries with social-ecological vulnerability assessment - Ashma Hanifah
• No-take but not no-impact? Hammerhead shark discard outcomes in Queensland’s East Coast Inshore Fin Fish Fishery - Maddison C Cross
• Can we use judgement bias paradigms to assess captive shark welfare? - Culum Brown
• Population structure of bottlenose wedgefish (Rhynchobatus australiae) in the Eastern Indo-West Pacific - Muhammad Ichsan
• Uncovering the fine-scale behaviour of a top marine predator in a coastal system - Adrienne Gooden

• Securing Australia's Water Future - Justin Brookes

• How much can we alter a river’s flow regime without causing ecological impacts? Evidence from an ELOHA trial, with implications for environmental flow management and policy - Angela H. Arthington

Time: 7:00pm till late
Location: Kingfisher, Elizabeth Street Pier