biology

Tracy Ainsworth

Tracy Ainsworth is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tracy Ainsworth rather than just read about it. In short: Tracy Ainsworth is a marine biologist and Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, working on coral reefs, and the biology of the Great Barrier Reef. Her research covers the biology of stresses, cells, disease, immunity and symbiosis.

Key takeaways

Tracy Ainsworth belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tracy Ainsworth to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tracy Ainsworth from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tracy Ainsworth is a marine biologist and Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, working on coral reefs, and the biology of the Great Barrier Reef. Her research covers the biology of stresses, cells, disease, immunity and symbiosis. She was awarded the Dorothy Hill Medal for science, from the Australian Academy of Science, for research on coral reef, stresses and impacts of temperature on coral health.

Career Ainsworth's career has examined impacts of environmental stress on corals, particularly reef-building corals, together with the interactions between hosts and microbe. She also studies symbioses and disease outbreaks. Research around bacterial associates of corals opened up knowledge around the mechanisms of coral diseases, how these occur and what causes them to progress. Ainsworth has also identified a range of novel intracellular bacteria which may play a role in the success of corals. She has also examined the impacts of rising temperatures, and climate change, and how this will affect coral both at present, and in future climates. Ainsworth has published studies on the impacts of rising water temperatures on corals.

Publications

Selected peer-reviewed journal articles include the following:

Ainsworth, Tracy D., andGates, Ruth D. (2016) Corals’ microbial sentinels: the coral microbiome will be key to future reef health. Science, 352 (6293). pp. 1518–1519. Kelly, Lisa A., Heintz, Tom, Lamb, Joleah B., Ainsworth, Tracy D., and Willis, Bette L. (2016) Ecology and pathology of novel plaque-like growth anomalies affecting a reef-building coral on the Great Barrier Reef. Frontiers in Marine Science, 3. pp. 1–12. Ainsworth, Tracy D., Heron, Scott F., Ortiz, Juan Carlos, Mumby, Peter J., Grech, Alana, Ogawa, Daisie, Eakin, C. Mark, and Leggat, William (2016) Climate change disables coral bleaching protection on the Great Barrier Reef. Science, 352 (6283). pp. 338–342. She has also published a book:

Graham NAJ; Ainsworth TD; Baird AH; Ban NC; Bay LK; Cinner JE; De Freitas DM; Diaz-Pulido G; Dornelas M; Dunn SR; Fidelman PIJ; Foret S; Good TC; Kool J; Mallela J; Penin L; Pratchett MS; Williamson DH, 2011, From microbes to people: Tractable benefits of no-take areas for coral reefs.

Media Ainsworth has published on coral reefs and marine science within The Conversation, where together with researchers from other Australian universities, she described the impacts of coral bleaching, in the Lord Howe Island Marine Park. She has also had her work described by the ABC.

Awards 2018 - Dorothy Hill Medal 2012 - ARC Super Science Fellow (2012–2015) 2011 - L'Oreal Women in Science Fellowship.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tracy Ainsworth

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tracy Ainsworth claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tracy Ainsworth before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tracy Ainsworth ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tracy Ainsworth

In research: Tracy Ainsworth appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tracy Ainsworth in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tracy Ainsworth is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of the University of New South Wales, Australian marine biologists, Australian women academics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tracy Ainsworth outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tracy Ainsworth in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tracy Ainsworth means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tracy Ainsworth out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tracy Ainsworth in simple terms?

Why does Tracy Ainsworth matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tracy Ainsworth?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tracy Ainsworth.