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Dr Sharon Appleyard

Director Australian National Fish Collection

https://people.csiro.au/a/s/sharon-appleyard

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Contact details:

GPO BOX 1538
HOBART TAS 7001 AUSTRALIA

Biography

Sharon has a national and international reputation in population and molecular genetics as applied to wild fisheries stock assessments and in species of biodiversity interest (e.g., Patagonian toothfish, sharks, ling, orange roughy, black cod, yellowfin and bigeye tuna, skates, rays, spotted handfish) and in selective breeding programs for aquaculture (i.e., oysters, greenlip, blacklip and hybrid abalone). Sharon’s molecular expertise includes population genetic and genomic structure and connectivity assessments, DNA sequencing, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) analyses, DNA parentage and assignment analyses and quantitative genetics. More recently, Sharon led several environmental DNA (eDNA) projects for fishes and sharks and high-throughput amplicon sequencing for metabarcoding in low input & degraded DNA from museum specimens and from ethanol preservative liquid. Sharon has extensive experience in marine fish, invertebrate and micro-algae species identifications and DNA barcoding. Sharon currently curates an extensive international BarCode of Life Datasystems (BOLD) reference sequence library and utilises this resource for integrated taxonomy and metabarcode analyses of adult and larval fishes and molecular identification of fish eggs.

Currently, Sharon is the Team Lead/Director of the Australian National Fish Collection (ANFC) in Hobart and as part of this role, is leading integrated taxonomic research on Australian fishes and working closely with the CSIRO National Biodiversity DNA Library Marine Vertebrate Campaign to provide specimen validated reference sequences from the ANFC.

Sharon has attracted >$4M in competitive funding, published >60 papers in international journals, authored >105 conference papers, proceedings & significant communications and produced >60 client and industry reports. As an expert in handfish genomics and fish (meta)barcoding and population genomics, Sharon is an invited member of the captive breeding subcommittee for the Commonwealth National Handfish Recovery Team (NHRT) (2024 - ongoing) and for the Ocean Biomolecular Observing Network (OBON) steering committee for Biomolecular Tools for Fisheries and Aquaculture (2024 - ongoing).

Hear more about Sharon’s research journey and the ANFC here (https://www.printradiotas.org.au/vibes-under-the-sea-presented-by-craig-proctor/episode-88-dr-sharon-appleyard-csiro).

Professional Areas

Fields of Research

Current

Current Roles

  • Director Australian National Fish Collection (2023 - present)
    Team Leader and NRCA facility lead

  • Senior Research Scientist (2015 - present)
    Population genetics/genomics and connectivity assessments in fish/fisheries; fish and algae species identifications through eDNA analyses and (meta)barcoding

Academic Qualifications

  • 2003

    Grad Cert. Rural Science
    University of New England

  • 1998

    Doctor of Philosophy
    Queensland University of Technology

  • 1992

    B. Applied Science (Hons)
    Queensland University of Technology

  • 1991

    B. Applied Science
    Queensland University of Technology

Professional Experiences

  • 2023-present

    Team Leader
    Australian National Fish Collection, CSIRO National Collections and Marine Infrastructure, Australia

  • 2015-present

    Senior Research Scientist
    Australian National Fish Collection, CSIRO National Collections and Marine Infrastructure, Australia

  • 2014-2015

    Research Scientist
    Pelagic Spatial Dynamics and Deep Water Benthic Ecosystems, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere

  • 1998-2014

    Research Projects
    Various teams including Aquaculture, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research; CSIRO Marine Research

Other highlights

  • 2023-2026

    Leadership of an NRCA facility/collection

  • 2015-ongoing

    Principal investigator & co-investigator on strategic and externally funded projects designed and implemented for innovative fish genomics research (>$4M)

  • 1998-ongoing

    Extensive research experience in population genetics & genomics for fisheries, biodiversity important and endangered fishes (adult (and larval) fish research, (meta)barcoding and eDNA analyses for fishes (Class Actinopterygii and Elasmobranchii)) including project manager of >35 reference sequence projects in the BarCode of Life DataSystem (BOLD)

Related links

Publications

We have publications by Dr Sharon Appleyard

    Published data & software

    We have published items by Dr Sharon Appleyard