Carden Wallace facts for kids

Carden Crea Wallace is an Australian scientist. She is famous for her work studying corals. From 1987 to 2003, she was the director of the Museum of Tropical Queensland.

One of her biggest discoveries was finding out that corals can release their eggs and sperm all at once. This amazing event is called mass spawning.

Early Life and Discoveries

Carden Wallace studied science at the University of Queensland. She earned her first degree in 1970. Later, in 1979, she completed her Ph.D. at the same university.

From 1970 to 1976, she worked at the Queensland Museum. She was a curator for smaller animals with backbones. After that, she did research at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Then, in 1980, she became a fellow at James Cook University. There, she focused on Marine Biology.

Coral Mass Spawning

In 1984, Carden Wallace and six other scientists made an exciting discovery. They saw corals on the Great Barrier Reef releasing their eggs and sperm at the same time. This happens in October or November each year.

This event, called mass spawning, was a new discovery. It showed how creatures can time their reproduction together. Other countries have since seen similar events. In 1992, the team from James Cook University won the Eureka Prize for their environmental research.

Leading the Museum

In 1987, Carden Wallace became the 'Curator-in-Charge' of the North Queensland Branch of the Queensland Museum. This branch later became the Museum of Tropical Queensland.

While working at the museum, she described new types of corals. These included Acropora hoeksemai and Acropora batunai in 1997.

Director of the Museum

Carden Wallace became the Director of the Museum of Tropical Queensland in 1997. A new building for the museum opened in June 2000.

In 1999, Wallace published an important book about corals. It was called "Staghorn Corals of the World: A Revision of the Genus Acropora". This book was the first major study of the Acropora coral group in over 100 years. It described every type of coral in that group.

Sally Lewis took over as director of the museum in 2003.

Later Research and Recognition

Even after leaving the museum, Carden Wallace continued her research. In 2008, she studied how nature recovered after an atomic explosion at Bikini Atoll. Her team found that some life had returned. However, 28 types of coral were still missing.

In 2014, she described several more new coral species. One of these was Acropora macrocalyx.

Carden Wallace is also on the board of OceanNEnvironment. In 2014, a photography contest by the Ocean Geographic Society named an award after her. It was called the Carden Wallace Award for seascapes.

See also

In Spanish: Carden Wallace para niños