Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Dressing for survival and success: what pre-European Maori wore for adaptive realisation
Recipient(s): Ms CA Smith | PI | University of Otago
Public Summary: New Zealand was the last landmass colonised by humans. Study of the earliest New Zealand colonists is not only evidence of a remarkable migration from tropical Polynesia, it provides an unrivalled vision of the impact of a foreign environment on culture change. The shift to a colder climate meant the survival of Maori relied on exploitation of unknown plants and transformation of Pacific textile technologies. Early Maori clothing must have been among the first modifications to established Polynesian material culture, yet is largely unstudied. What is the relationship between Pacific clothing and the emergence of indigenous Maori dress? Early Maori textiles in museums are evidence of the radical and explosive culture change that took place after arrival in New Zealand. The study of early Maori dress artefacts (tapa, raranga cloaks), using a co-ordinated suite of innovative and internationally-proven analytical techniques that draw on established research relationships, will plainly illustrate how new plants and climate impacted on clothing. In doing so the creativity and ingenuity with which the first New Zealanders adapted to new conditions is made manifest, relationships to traditional Pacific dress forms are revealed, and the place of textiles in the emergence of indigenous Maori culture acknowledged.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Ms CA Smith
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 14-UOO-183
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: Drilling back to the Pliocene in search of Earth's future high-tide
Recipient(s): Professor TR Naish | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr BV Alloway | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr G Dunbar | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor MA Kominz | AI | Western Michigan University
Professor K Lambeck | AI | Australian National University
Dr R McKay | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr H Morgans | AI | GNS Science
Dr D Seward | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr G Turner | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: The warm climate of the Pliocene represents the most accessible example from our geological past that can provide insights into how Earth will respond to projected future warming, especially the polar ice sheets and their influence on sea-level rise. We will reconstruct peak sea-level between 3.6-3Ma by recovering drill cores from Wanganui Basin - arguably the most complete shallow-marine sediment record available for the last 5 million years. Our international team will reconstruct global sea-level with unprecedented accuracy by using a backstripping approach to remove the local effects of tectonism and loading. We will also correct for glacio-hydro-isostasy.
Total Awarded: $782,609
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Professor TR Naish
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 13-VUW-112
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Drinking for two: Central resetting of water balance in pregnancy and lactation
Recipient(s): Professor CH Brown | PI | University of Otago
Mr GT Bouwer | AI | University of Otago
Mr AJ Seymour | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: Pregnant women retain water during pregnancy to ensure an adequate blood supply for the developing baby and to prepare for milk production during lactation. Water is retained by increasing the secretion of vasopressin, a hormone that promotes water reabsorption in the kidneys. Normally, dilution of body salts by water retention decreases vasopressin secretion, but this doesn’t happen in pregnancy or lactation. While it has been known since the 1980s that altered vasopressin secretion resets water balance during pregnancy, the mechanisms that cause this resetting are still unknown. Our new data show that vasopressin-secreting cells are more sensitive to salt during lactation and so this might be the mechanism that resets water balance during pregnancy. Therefore, we will determine how vasopressin cells increase their responsiveness to salt in pregnancy to prepare women for successful pregnancy and lactation.
Total Awarded: $825,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Professor CH Brown
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 16-UOO-005
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Dynamics of multiscale excitable systems: applications to calcium dynamics and neuroscience
Recipient(s): Prof JS Sneyd | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr VJ Kirk | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr HM Osinga | AI | University of Bristol
Dr M Wechselberger | AI | The University of Sydney
Public Summary: Many important biological systems have the property that some processes evolve much faster than others, and mathematical models of such systems typically incorporate this property. Our previous work has shown that, in such cases, not only can mathematics be used to help understand the biology, but the models also raise interesting new mathematical questions.
We propose to study several mathematical questions about systems with multiple timescales, including techniques for the rigorous construction and analysis of simplified models. Our work will be applicable to many areas of physiology where multiple timescales are present. In particular, we shall use our methods to study the behaviour of gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons in the hypothalamus, as well as study how calcium oscillations control the secretion of saliva and the contraction of airway smooth muscle cells.
Total Awarded: $526,087
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Prof JS Sneyd
Panel: MIS
Project ID: 11-UOA-148
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: E2s and the regulation of ubiquitin transfer
Recipient(s): Assoc Prof CL Day | PI | Otago University
Dr MG Hinds | AI | Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Public Summary: The addition of ubiquitin to proteins regulates their abundance and interactions, and has emerged as a major mechanism for the regulation of many cellular events. As expected for such a critical process, dysregulation of ubiquitin mediated events manifests as diseases such as cancer. Attachment of ubiquitin to proteins depends on a cascade of three enzymes (referred to as E1, E2 and E3). Although the activity and regulation of the E2 family of enzymes is critical, less is known about how they function.
Recent studies by the co-applicants and others indicate that the E2 enzymes are regulated in a number of different ways. Using purified proteins, we will determine how sequences within the E2 enzyme can modulate activity. We will also investigate how transfer of ubiquitin from the E2, to the target protein, is regulated by its interaction with the E3 protein. A detailed molecular understanding of E2 enzyme function is important because the E2 enzymes lie at the heart of the enzyme cascade and each E2 works together with a number of E3 proteins. Many diseases are caused by aberrant ubiquitylation and ultimately these studies may suggest novel approaches for the regulation of these processes.
Total Awarded: $856,522
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Assoc Prof CL Day
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 11-UOO-212
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Early birds: insights from the fossil record into the evolutionary and ecological histories of shorebirds.
Recipient(s): Dr VL De Pietri | PI | Canterbury Museum
Dr G Mayr | AI | Senckenberg Research Institute
Professor RP Scofield | AI | Canterbury Museum
Public Summary: The ecological and taxonomic diversity of shorebirds (Charadriiformes) is unique among modern birds. In the Australasian and Subantarctic Regions, 13 shorebird families are currently represented, which include species-rich radiations and small, morphologically and behaviourally distinct groups. Studies of living species alone offer only limited insight into the factors that drove this remarkable diversity. The globally rich, pre-Quaternary fossil record of shorebirds begins 47 million years ago and allows for the reconstruction of ancient shorebird assemblages in Australasia and worldwide during the Cenozoic. Using a morphology-based approach in combination with recent technological advances now widely applied in avian palaeontology, we will investigate the influence of Cenozoic environmental changes on the ecological diversification of the shorebird group, and explore the development of avifaunal connections between New Zealand, Australia, and the rest of the world. We will provide an evolutionary perspective on the very distinct morphological and behavioural adaptations that characterise some shorebird lineages, such as long distance migration in migratory waders. By integrating morphological and molecular data, we will provide a new synthesis of the timing of the multiple diversification events within Charadriiformes, and establish a link between palaeoclimatic events and shorebird diversification over the last 47 million years.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Canterbury Museum
Contact Person: Dr VL De Pietri
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 16-CTM-001
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Early factors in childhood communication disorders
Recipient(s): Prof T Klee | PI | University of Canterbury
Dr CA Moran | AI | University of Canterbury
Prof S Stokes | AI | University of Canterbury
Public Summary: Parents are rightly concerned if their two-year-old child is late in learning to talk. At present we cannot accurately predict which of these late talkers will ‘grow out of it’ and which will go on to have later language and literacy problems. We know that risk factors include being a boy, having low optimal birth weight and a family history of speech/language problems. We also know that other social and environmental factors (like socio-economic status, being a single parent, etc), are not risk factors. But as yet, we cannot accurately tell a parent whether or not their child will continue to have problems. No single study has used the right tests and the right mix of child and family measures, like prematurity and a family history of language problems, in combination with children’s developing thinking skills (like short-term memory) to predict whether or not a 2-year-old late talker will have a later language problem. This is the focus of the current research. We will test the value of including three new measures to predict outcomes. These are verbal short-term memory, parent concern about their child’s development, and how the child learns over time.
Total Awarded: $634,783
Duration: 3
Host: University of Canterbury
Contact Person: Prof T Klee
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 10-UOC-083
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Earthquake hydrology: seismic pumps or broken pipes?
Recipient(s): Dr SC Cox | PI | GNS Science
Dr MA Gusyev | AI | GNS Science
Dr C Holden | AI | GNS Science
Dr M Manga | AI | University of California, Berkeley
Dr HK Rutter | AI | Aqualinc Research Ltd
Public Summary: Changes in well water levels following earthquakes have been observed for thousands of years, but recent recognition that large earthquakes can induce effects across the planet has generated considerable new interest in such phenomena. Understanding the effect of earthquakes on groundwater and the consequences for engineering strength of land should be fundamental in a seismically active country that relies heavily on groundwater. The M7.1 (2010) and M6.2 (2011) Canterbury and M7.8 (2009) Fiordland earthquakes resulted in proximal liquefaction and groundwater changes throughout New Zealand, as far afield as Northland, that were recorded by hydrological and seismological monitoring networks with unsurpassed spatial and temporal resolution. We aim to understand the driving mechanism(s) of fluid movement during these major, very different, recent South Island earthquakes. In the first systematic investigation of earthquake hydrology in New Zealand, we will examine and model rich datasets of water level-, aquifer- and flow-changes induced by shaking, stress and strain. We aim to elucidate spatial distributions of dynamic stress (‘seismic pump’) vs static stress (‘broken pipe’) causal mechanisms, to deliver internationally important examples of crustal hydromechanics from New Zealand, relevant locally for understanding liquefaction, informed engineering, and security of water supply.
Total Awarded: $834,783
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr SC Cox
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 12-GNS-003
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: East Side Orchestras: Music, Poverty, and Social Change
Recipient(s): Dr L Gibson | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: Creative artistic practices represent an emerging field of scholarship and policy and are increasingly used by development organisations to address poverty and other pressing social issues. This research will explore how young people living in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation experience the relationship between music, poverty, and social change. It asks: can music really change lives, and to what extent do creative artistic practices foster young people’s hope and agency? This project involves ethnographic research with Māori and Pasifika young people participating in orchestral music education programmes in low decile schools in urban Wellington. It will be the first long-term ethnographic study in Aotearoa/New Zealand to track and observe the social, cultural, and musical impacts of these programmes as identified and experienced by Māori and Pasifika young people themselves. By foregrounding them as social and cultural actors, this research will expand knowledge of young people as agents for social change in development processes. It will provide new insights into the relationship between development, hope, and agency by exploring how orchestral music programmes are collectively constructed as hopeful spaces, and will increase understandings of how creative artistic practices might offer distinctive approaches to addressing young people’s social needs and priorities.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Dr L Gibson
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 16-VUW-028
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Ecological influences and life course impacts of bullying and victimisation for youth in New Zealand
Recipient(s): Dr JE Stuart | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr SJ Denny | AI | The University of Auckland
Assoc Prof PE Jose | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: Young people in New Zealand are falling behind on indices of health and well-being, and fare particularly badly in terms of bullying and victimisation. It is well established that the experience of bullying (as perpetrator or victim) has negative implications for physical and mental wellbeing, but research rarely examines the outcomes of bullying beyond adolescence and often does not take into account the influence of risk and protective factors in the social ecology (family, school, and community). The proposed research suggests that bullying behaviours occur in the context of broader violence and victimisation, that bullying significantly impacts youth adjustment, and that these behaviours result in persistent negative outcomes over the lifecourse. The overall aim of this project is to contextualise the environment in which bullying occurs in order to elucidate potential protective and exacerbating factors. The major outcome of this research is the development of a set of recommendations for effective, ecologically grounded prevention and intervention strategies aimed at all forms of bullying behaviours. These strategies will assist in ensuring that our society fulfils the rights of children to have a safe and healthy life that is free from violence and abuse.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr JE Stuart
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 12-UOA-211