Richard Marchant studied the population ecology of brine shrimps that inhabit salt lakes in western Victoria for his PhD. Before his arrival at the museum he investigated the feeding and population ecology of riverine amphipods (a type of shrimp) in Ontario, Canada and the composition of tropical invertebrates in billabongs in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory.
While at the museum he has had the opportunity to examine the stream invertebrates of an isolated sub-antarctic island, Macquarie Island (half way between Tasmania and Antarctica), and has conducted much field work on stream invertebrate communities in Victoria and southern NSW.
He serves as an advisor on the ecology of river invertebrates to the Murray Darling Basin Commission and the Federal Department of the Environment. He is also the scientific editor of Memoirs of Museum Victoria, the museum’s annual scientific journal, and is an associate editor of Marine and Freshwater Research (one of the journals published by CSIRO).
He has been the secretary of the Australian Society for Limnology, a national organisation promoting the study and scientific management of Australia’s inland aquatic ecosystems, since 1985. He is also the Australian national representative of the International Society for Limnology, a worldwide organisation of freshwater biologists and others who study lakes and rivers.