Carden Crea Wallace (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1970–) is an Australian scientist who was the curator/director of the Museum of Tropical Queensland from 1987 to 2003. She is an expert on

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

s having written a "revision of the Genus '' Acropora''". Wallace was part of a team that discovered mass spawning of coral in 1984.

Life

Carden C. Wallace graduated with a first class degree in Science from the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

in 1970. She gave birth to two sons in the 1970s. From 1970 to 1976, she was the curator of lower vertebrates at the Queensland Museum. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1979 at the University of Queensland. Wallace spent a brief period researching at the Australian Institute of Marine Science before researching Marine Biology from 1980 as a fellow at the

James Cook University James Cook University (JCU) is a public university in North Queensland, Australia. The second oldest university in Queensland, JCU is a teaching and research institution. The university's main campuses are located in the tropical cities of Cair ...

of North Queensland. In 1984, Wallace and six others first reported that corals took part in mass spawning which they observed on the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

in October/November. Since they first observed reproductive synchrony in coral in Australia, it has been observed in other countries but at different times of the year. As a result, the team from James Cook University were awarded the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research in 1992. This example of creatures synchronising their reproduction was novel, and it was reported widely.

Museum of Tropical Queensland

In 1987, the North Queensland Branch of the

Queensland Museum The Queensland Museum Kurilpa is the state museum of Queensland, funded by the government, and dedicated to natural history, cultural heritage, science and human achievement. The museum currently operates from its headquarters and general museu ...

was under the direction of 'Curator-in-Charge' Carden Wallace.History
Museum of Tropical Queensland. Retrieved 16 August 2015 Whilst still at the museum, she was credited with first describing a number of corals including '' Acropora hoeksemai'' and '' Acropora batunai'' in 1997. Wallace was named Director of the Museum of Tropical Queensland in 1997. Its new building was opened in June 2000 by the Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. In 1999, Wallace published an important work on corals titled "Staghorn Corals of the World: A Revision of the Genus ''Acropora''". This was the first study in over a century of the genus ''Acropora'', and it included a full description of each sub-species. Sally Lewis took over as director of the Queensland Tropical Museum in 2003.Queensland Museum Annual Report 2002-2003
Retrieved 13 August 2015 In 2008, Wallace and others reported on the recovery of bio-diversity following the atomic explosion at

Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese language, Marshallese: , , ), known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. The atoll is at the no ...

. The team reported that there had been some recovery, but 28 types of coral were extinct. In 2014, she described several new species including '' Acropora macrocalyx''. Wallace is a member of the board of OceanNEnvironment. When the Ocean Geographic Society ran a photographic competition in 2014, the award for seascapes was called the Carden Wallace Award.Carden Wallace PhD
Ocean Geographic Society. Retrieved 13 August 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Carden Australian marine biologists Australian curators Living people Australian women scientists Women marine biologists Australian women curators 21st-century Australian scientists 21st-century Australian biologists 21st-century Australian women scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Members of the Order of Australia