Skye Wassens

Professor Skye Wassens

Ecologist

Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences

Biography

Professor Skye Wassens is an internationally recognised ecologist specialising in the ecology and conservation of wetland dependant amphibians. Her research on the responses of amphibians to environmental flooding and amphibian water requirements has led the way for the inclusion of amphibians into environmental flooding programs throughout the Murray-Darling Basin. Her research on wetland dependent frogs currently underpins environmental flooding strategies in the Lowbidgee floodplain and Yanga National Park, the Murrumbidgee Water Sharing Plan and management of wetlands in the Mid Lachlan River. She has lead a number of major field based research projects on the relationship between flooding and amphibian dispersal, tadpole ecology, the relationship between native and introduced freshwater fish and amphibian recruitment during wetland flooding, temporal activity patterns of wetland dependant frogs and large scale drivers of amphibian habitat occupancy in regulated rivers and floodplain wetlands.

She is leader of the Murrumbidgee Long Term Intervention Monitoring Project

Research
  • Aquatic ecology
  • Ecology and conservation of wetland dependent amphibians
Publications
Full publications list on CRO

Recent Publications

  • Sanders, E., Wassens, S., Michael, D. R., Nimmo, D. G., & Turner, J. M. (2024). Extinction risk of the world's freshwater mammals. Conservation Biology, 38, e14168. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14168 
  • Znidersic, E., Turner, A., Talbot, S., & Wassens, S. (2024). Australasian bittern Fact Sheet.
  • Sanders, E., Nimmo, D. G., Turner, J. M., Wassens, S. & Michael, D. R. (2024). Putting rakali in spotlight: innovative methods for detecting an elusive semi-aquatic mammal. Wildlife Research 51, WR24002. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR24002
  • Mathwin, R., Wassens, S., Turner, A., Heard, G. W., Hall, A., & Bradshaw, C. J. A. (2024). Modelling the sustainable harvest of wild populations for the conservation of a threatened amphibian. Austral Ecology49(2), Article e13492. https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.13492
  • Mathwin, R., Wassens, S., Gibbs, M., Ye, Q., Young, J., Saltre, F., & Bradshaw, C. J. A. (2024). Stochastic metapopulation dynamics of a threatened amphibian to improve water delivery. Ecosphere, Article e4741. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4741