Laura Brannelly

Laura Brannelly is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne in One Health and Biostatistics. She is interested in conservation, endangered species and disease ecology. Dr Brannelly is particularly interested in understanding the global amphibian declines and the pathogenic fungus that causes the disease chytridiomycosis. Dr Laura Brannelly’s work aims to understand how and why some species survive while others continue to decline. She is passionate about merging scientific research with active management to increase conservation success.

While immunity and environmental factors are often seen as a key driver in understanding how some species are able to overcome wildlife disease, Dr Brannelly takes a different approach: understanding reproduction. When infected with a deadly disease, some species will actually increase their breeding effort, and she has found this to be true in several frog species. Understanding how disease impacts breeding is another avenue that can help assist management and improve conservation and better understand the ecology of our precious Australian frog species.