Matthew Heydenrych

Matt has worked as a research technician for a leading environmental DNA lab while completing his undergraduate and Masters, which focussed upon molecular ecology and epigenetics.

Matt’s PhD is focussed on identifying epigenetic biomarkers for sexual maturity in zebra fish. Knowing the sexual maturity state of an animal provides a useful metric for the estimation of population growth potential and the ability for a species to be resilient to exploitation. This work will then be expanded to key fisheries species and other ecologically important fish throughout the PhD. This will add to a growing number of genetic and epigenetic tests that can be undertaken on tissues collected from living animals.

Alongside Professor Simon Jarman, Dr Benjamin Mayne, and Professor Luke Thomas, Matt will conduct this research in the Indian Ocean Marin Research Centre located on the UWA Crawley campus.