Dr Kate Hutson

Biography/ Background

I work in Marine Parasitology. I was bitten by the parasite bug when I was in primary school. My Mum extracted a head louse out of my best friends hair and showed it to us underneath a microscope. I was hooked.

The fishing came later on. I fished with my Pop. We caught rainbow trout in his back creek and flathead in Port Phillip Bay. These days, I get to go fishing for work. Marine Parasitology combines the best of both worlds.

I studied Zoology at The University of Melbourne and did an Honours year in Marine Biology. I worked on a parasite that castrates scallops, making them infertile! I got my dive certification and collected scallops from Port Phillip Bay and Spencer Gulf and Gulf St. Vincent in South Australia for my study.

After graduating, I spent six months working in New Zealand at Leigh Marine Laboratory. Leigh cemented my fascination for the marine environment. A marine reserve for over twenty-five years, the place was teaming with fish. Massive kings, knobby snappers, schools of flying fish and gutters full of crays.

Returning to Melbourne, I got a job at the Melbourne Aquarium working in Education. I then went back to research, working at the University of Technology (UTS) in Sydney looking at parasites of Atlantic salmon.

I moved to the University of Adelaide to do a PhD on the parasites of wild and farmed yellowtail kingfish. More recently, I won an ABRS/FRDC grant which will enable me to continue work as an Early Career Researcher on the parasites of recreational, commercial and aquaculture fishes in Australia with Assoc Prof Ian Whittington for the next three years.

Professional Associations

I am an honourary member of the Adelaide Game Fishing Club www.adelaidegamefishingclub.com who have been very helpful in helping me with my research work. As a club member I participate in tournaments, write short popular science articles for their website and assist with connecting the club with research groups. I have initiated excellent relations between the club and The University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum. The museum has obtained fish and parasite specimens not previously held in the collection, including one new parasite species, which was named in honour of a club member!

Research Interests

Metazoan parasites threaten the sustainability and profitability of the Australian finfish aquaculture industry. In the sea-cage environment farmed fish can acquire infections from local populations of wild fish. However, the parasite assemblages of the wild fish species and the potential risk of these parasites for sea-cage aquaculture are largely unknown.

I am working on 12 key native fish species to undertake a parasite survey in southern Australia including currently farmed species, candidate species for aquaculture and recreational species that associate with sea-cages. I concentrate my work on copepod, monogenean and trematode species because these parasite groups are frequently associated with pathology, morbidity or mortality in finfish aquaculture. This project is funded by the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC).

Publications

Repulles-Albelda A., Montero F.E., Holzer A.S., Ogawa K., Hutson K.S. & Raga J.A. 2008. Speciation of Paradeontacylix spp. (Sanguinicolidae) in Seriola dumerili. Two new species of the genus Paradeontacylix from the Mediterranean, Parasitology International, 57, 405-414.

Hutson K.S., Smith, B.P., Godfrey, R.T., Whittington, I.D., Chambers, C.B., Ernst, I. & Gillanders, B.M. 2007. A tagging study on yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi) and Samson fish (S. hippos) in South Australian waters. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 131, 128-134.

Hutson K.S., Ernst I. & Whittington I.D. 2007. Risk assessment for parasites of Seriola lalandi (Carangidae) in South Australian sea-cage aquaculture. Aquaculture, 271, 85-99.

Hutson K.S. & Tang, D. 2007. Naricolax hoi n. sp. (Cyclopoida: Bomolochidae) from Arius maculatus (Siluriformes: Ariidae) off Taiwan and redescription of N. chrysophryenus (Roubal, Armitage & Rohde, 1983) from a new host, Seriola lalandi (Perciformes: Carangidae), in Australian waters. Systematic Parasitology, 68, 97-113.

Hutson K.S., Mooney A.J., Ernst I. & Whittington I.D. 2007. Metazoan parasite assemblages of wild Seriola lalandi (Perciformes: Carangidae) from eastern and southern Australia. Parasitology International. 56: 95-105.

Hutson K.S. & Whittington I.D. 2006. Paradeontacylix godfreyi n. sp. (Digenea: Sanguinicolidae) from the heart of wild Seriola lalandi (Perciformes: Carangidae) in southern Australia. Zootaxa. 1151: 55-68.

Diggles B. & Hutson K.S. 2005. Diseases of kingfish (Seriola lalandi) in Australasia. Aquaculture Health International. VIP Publications Ltd, Auckland Issue 3, Nov 2005.

Hutson K.S., Ross D.J., Day R. & Ahern J.J. 2005. Australian scallops do not recognise the introduced predatory seastar, Asterias amurensis. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 298: 305-309.

Hutson K.S., Styan C.A., Beveridge I., Keough M.J., Zhu X.Q., Abs EL-Osta Y.G. & Gasser R.B. 2004. Elucidating the ecology of bucephalid parasites using a mutation scanning approach. Molecular and Cellular Probes. 18: 139-146.

Community Engagement

One of my recent projects has involved tagging wild kingfish and Samson fish to better understand their migratory movements. I have had a fantastic response to this work in the fishing community, with heaps of people getting involved. Although it is a small-scale tagging programme, it is the only one that has ever been done on big game fish (other than tuna) in SA waters. We have tagged nearly 400 hundred fish so far.

Entry last updated: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008