ORCID Profile
0000-0002-3547-616X
Current Organisation
University of Tasmania
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Publisher: Unpublished
Date: 2017
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2015
DOI: 10.1111/EMR.12164
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-08-2019
DOI: 10.1111/EMR.12384
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1071/PC140272
Abstract: Coastal saltmarshes of temperate Australia are in decline and have recently been listed as a threatened ecological community under Federal legislation. Further research is required to better understand both the extent and nature of their decline in order to plan their recovery. A case study is presented of the most extensive area of saltmarshes in Tasmania, on the north-west Circular Head coast. A mixture of aerial photographs and ground-truthing data were used to determine human impacts and saltmarsh loss between 1952 and 2006. There was an absolute loss of 219 ha since 1952, largely due to the effects of a 24.5 km network of levees. Of the 1 153 ha of saltmarshes that remained in 2006, a further 752 ha (65%) was associated with one or several of land-based human impacts. This left 401 ha (35%) of saltmarshes that had no recorded human impacts and a contiguous vegetative buffer zone of 50–100 m. These areas represent some of the least disturbed saltmarshes in Tasmania and warrant adequate conservation measures. Future planning for conservation and the use of land and marine resources should strive to promote both the extent and functional health of saltmarshes.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-07-2018
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-07-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S00267-023-01856-3
Abstract: Deciding whether to plant native or non-native trees in public urban green spaces is becoming complex and conflicted, and decisions purely based on biotic nativeness are likely to be hamstrung as climate change and rising urban heat push many native species beyond their natural ranges. Importantly, tree selection considerations by urban planners and environmental managers will have to move beyond a primary focus on securing conservation and ecological outcomes, to elucidate and engage with a growing interest in the socio-cultural values and services of urban trees. Building on emerging theoretical perspectives, this place-based study explores the role that perceptions of nativeness have in shaping people’s relationships with native and non-native urban trees and landscapes in an Australian city. Nativeness was associated with a range of subjective meanings including cultural identity, political expression, nature connection, desirable and undesirable traits, and environmental and cultural compatibility. Our findings emphasise that the ways in which urban trees and green spaces are valued and experienced is likely mediated by people’s perceptions of nativeness and its importance relative to other attributes. To provision and sustain green spaces that meet the erse needs and preferences of urban publics, planners and managers need to elucidate and incorporate the nuanced, place-based and multifaceted subjective meanings of nativeness into urban greening decision-making and practice.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-05-2023
Abstract: Concerns about the decline in uptake of secondary geography education continue despite arguments supporting the value of geography education, the power of geographical thinking, and geography’s critical role in preparing students to deal with complex challenges. Already constrained by neoliberal politics of disadvantage, young people must plan and prepare for chaotic futures. Consequently, young people are becoming distressed and worried about their futures and feeling powerless as society fails to adequately address these issues. In this article, we ask what schools and universities can do as place‐based public institutions to serve young people to effectively respond to eco‐anxiety and build capacities to surf the unrelenting waves of change. We draw on journeys that brought three young doctoral candidates to study geography. From their stories, we sketch what a geographical education could offer in terms of relevance, practicality, and engagement with transformative system change. We think that under current world conditions, this is a moment to revive geography education and give it renewed purpose to encourage young people to develop skills and competences to tackle wicked problems.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1071/MF20069
Abstract: There is a growing body of research highlighting the importance of saltmarshes as habitats for fish for feeding, refuge from predation and reproduction. However, more work is needed on fish on vegetated marsh flats (or surfaces). We reviewed 60 studies that used 21 methods to s le fish assemblages on saltmarsh flats. Drop s lers, fyke nets and pop nets were most frequently employed, with considerably more studies being conducted in graminoid than succulent marsh. Reporting of s ling temporal and tidal details, environmental variables and fish attributes was inconsistent. Most of the papers focussed on one or more of conservation management, comparisons among habitat types, and the use of saltmarsh (including fish activity type or residency status). Important potential areas of research include the relationships between the fish assemblages of saltmarsh flats and coastal fisheries, the effects of invasive plant species and marsh restoration efforts in areas outside the United States, and the potential effects of sea-level rise on vegetated flats as fish habitat. S ling methods that provide density measures are likely to be most useful for most of this research. Thus, drop s lers and pop nets are an appropriate choice, the former in graminoid saltmarshes and the latter in succulent saltmarshes.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 02-10-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.10.02.310946
Abstract: Total organic carbon (TOC) sediment stocks as a CO 2 mitigation service requires exclusion of allochthonous black (BC) and particulate inorganic carbon corrected for water– atmospheric equilibrium (PIC eq ). For the first time, we address this bias for a temperate salt marsh and a coastal tropical seagrass in BC hotspots. Seagrass TOC stocks were similar to the salt marshes with soil depths 1 m (59.3 ± 11.3 and 74.9 ± 18.9 MgC ha -1 , CI 95% respectively) and sequestration rates of 1.134 MgC ha -1 yr -1 . Both ecosystems showed larger BC constraints than their pristine counterparts. However, the seagrass meadows’ mitigation services were largely constrained by both higher BC/TOC and PIC eq /TOC fractions (38.0% ± 6.6% and 43.4% ± 5.9%, CI 95%) and salt marshes around a third (22% ± 10.2% and 6.0% ± 3.1% CI 95%). The results demonstrate a need to account for both BC and PIC within blue carbon mitigation assessments.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1071/PC16035
Abstract: In a recent Forum Essay in Pacific Conservation Biology, the well known ecologist Harry Recher argued that over the past three decades Australia had experienced a ‘failure of science’ and a concomitant ‘death of nature’. In this essay we examine some of the propositions put forward by Recher (2015), with particular reference to the role played by neoliberal ideology in nature conservation in Australia. Since the early 1980s the neoliberal value system has effectively shaped a new paradigm for nature conservation in Australia with its own language, tools and institutions, and through such a process has redefined nature in its own terms. We focus on two of the most significant neoliberal, free-market mechanisms – (1) monetary valuation of bio ersity and of ecosystem services, and (2) the provision of complementary areas to offset losses of high-quality habitat – and show how they have come to dominate policy development and on-ground activities in wetland management and conservation in Australia. Despite the wide reach of neoliberal ideology, ecologists and conservation biologists seem largely unaware of its practical implications. In some cases, such as with offset programs and with carbon valuation, they have become complicit with the ruling ideology, without, it seems to us, being fully aware of their involvement, tacit or explicit, or of the likely connotations of that participation. Hedging the future of wetland conservation to ‘market-driven environmentalism’ is simply an expected overreach in the broader context of neoliberal economic and political ideology, and provides rich grounds for a critique in support of a more considered approach to nature conservation.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2017
DOI: 10.1111/EMR.12251
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-2010
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2019
DOI: 10.1002/AQC.3085
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-11-2023
DOI: 10.1111/REC.13812
Abstract: Vegetation changes in saltmarsh habitat can influence fish assemblages and abundance. In Tasmania, Australia, mid‐latitude succulent saltmarsh communities have been invaded by the introduced tall grass, Spartina anglica. Eradication efforts have been ongoing since the 1990s with purported benefits for fish access to intertidal foraging grounds, but a lack of knowledge of the impact of S. anglica on fish limits understanding of the benefits and effectiveness of native habitat restoration. Here, we investigate whether fish assemblages in native saltmarshes and non‐native S. anglica grassland differ in species ersity, fish abundance, and size class distribution. We used buoyant pop nets to s le fishes in Sarcocornia quinqueflora herbland and S. anglica grassland swards at three s ling stations in northwest Tasmania. Very few in iduals and low species ersity were recorded in both vegetation types at the s ling station with the most well‐established S. anglica infestation. Elsewhere, richness and ersity were higher in S. quinqueflora herbland. Overall fish abundance was higher in S. quinqueflora than in S. anglica , with a very strong effect at one s ling station. Fewer small in iduals of the numerically dominant Atherinosoma microstoma were recorded in S. anglica , potentially indicating impaired nursery function. Our results provide important insights for S. anglica control, as we are the first to demonstrate a relationship between S. anglica presence and fish characteristics in southern Australian saltmarsh. These results indicate that S. anglica control is valuable for fish conservation. An extension of our research to document the effects of S. anglica removal on fishes is desirable.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1071/BT11206
Abstract: Coastal saltmarshes are reputed to be one of the most vulnerable communities to global warming, with widespread evidence of retreat and movement of lower marsh vegetation into areas previously occupied by upper marsh vegetation in response to rising sea levels, and potential changes in community composition from changes in rainfall, temperature and wind. We undertook an investigation of decades scale change in the distributions of saltmarsh communities defined by dominant species, using historic vegetation maps, remote sensing imagery and extensive field data collection. Our study area in south-eastern Tasmania has suffered a marked increase in temperatures and wind speeds and a marked decrease in rainfall since 1975, with sea level rising at a rate of 0.8 mm per annum. We therefore tested the hypothesis that these changes would result in a shift in saltmarsh community composition towards more salt- and inundation-tolerant communities and salt scalds. Eighteen percent of the 1975 marsh was lost to direct human modification and a net 4% was lost to coastal retreat. One large marsh was cut off from the sea then burned, then reconnected with the sea. The vegetation change between 1975 and 2009 in other parts of the saltmarshes occurred in 21% of their 1975 area. Most of the community transitions were consistent with increasing aridity. Thus, our results indicate that global warming has already caused marked changes in community composition in saltmarsh in Tasmania.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-11-2021
DOI: 10.1002/PAN3.10274
Abstract: The idea of which species are native, based on their biogeographic origin, is central to many policies and programmes. Yet definitions are contested and the meanings of ‘nativeness’ are often complex and confusing for many people. For ex le, a plant that would be considered 'native' in Australia might have a native bioregion that is thousands of kilometres from a given garden planting. The idea of nativeness is culturally constructed and connotes different meanings in different contexts. As conservation research and practice increasingly incorporate human values and behaviours, operationalising the social dimensions of abstract ecological concepts such as nativeness is needed to generate a more holistic evidence base and improve the management of native and non‐native species. We used a sequential mixed‐methods systematic review approach to review and synthesise literature on people's (including general publics, gardeners, conservationists) perceptions of nativeness of species and landscapes. A meta‐synthesis of qualitative research identified six dimensions that underlie people's perceptions in relation to nativeness: Belonging (a sense that there is a right or wrong place for a species to exist) human influence (the role of humans in moving species outside of their historic ranges) functional compatibility (a species' alignment with the local environment and ecology) amenity (desirable and useful features provided by a species) negative impacts (risk and manageability of detrimental impacts caused by a species) and identity (species forming part of one's place‐based identity). A systematic review of the quantitative urban literature found that most research on perceptions of native and non‐native species and landscapes did not operationalise nativeness in a multidimensional way, focusing predominantly on the ‘Negative impacts’ dimension. This may often be inadequate for meaningfully capturing people's views. Our results also highlight the need to strengthen interdisciplinarity between natural and social sciences, and for better integration of social science theories to improve the interpretability and transferability of research findings. We provide recommendations for future research that operationalises nativeness using a broader range of meanings that will inform a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the human dimensions of conservation issues, especially within the contested and briskly evolving terrain of urban greening. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-10-2023
Publisher: No publisher found
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1071/MF17154
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 27-04-2022
DOI: 10.1071/MF22033
Abstract: There is wide recognition, ch ioned by the Ramsar Convention, of the need to increase the public appreciation of wetlands and their conservation by providing meaningful experiences for visitors to Ramsar sites. In a case study of an Australian Ramsar site on the 50th anniversary of the treaty, we investigate the public’s awareness of this internationally significant wetland and their understanding of wetland biota and ecosystem services. To inform future communication, education, participation and awareness (CEPA), we also investigate public preferences for particular wetland-related knowledge, on-site activities, facilities and communication media. Less than half of the 326 survey respondents expressed some familiarity with wetlands. Notably, they were not aware of the existence of the Ramsar site, despite having driven past and being within close proximity to the wetland at the time of surveying. Non-extractive and non-commodified recreational activities such as trail walking and photography were preferred over extractive uses such as fishing and duck hunting and activities such as boat cruises and guided tours. There was a high demand for on-site facilities such as walking tracks and viewing platforms and for communication through web-based sources. Visitation to further the goals of Ramsar CEPA could be encouraged through the resourcing of locally appropriate infrastructure, promotion of activities and better communication.
Publisher: The Royal Society of Tasmania
Date: 2019
Abstract: Saltmarsh soils impose harsh selection pressures on vegetation resulting in characteristic plant communities. For our study of the effect of edaphic factors on vegetation we chose Long Point in Moulting Lagoon, Tasmania’s largest saltmarsh, which is dominated by a erse assemblage of halophytic succulents and graminoids. Three transects were established to s le variations in vegetation along the gradient from saltmarsh to woodland. Soil s les were analysed for summer and winter moisture, pH, and electrical conductivity (EC) a mixed summer and winter s le from each point was analysed for soil organic matter (SOM) and carbon. Additionally, a particle size analysis was carried out on all summer s les. Aspects of soil characteristics were aligned to classified vegetation groups and elevation. Moisture, pH, EC, SOM and carbon were all negatively correlated with elevation the saltmarsh zone displaying higher levels of all variables than those in the adjacent woodland zone. Clay content decreased and sand content increased from the marine margin of the saltmarsh zone to the woodland zone. Within the saltmarsh zone, soil moisture, EC and carbon had highest values in the low marsh area, with values decreasing towards the upper marsh area. This study deepens our understanding of the roles various edaphic factors play in the floristic composition of coastal saltmarshes.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-11-2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2022
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2019
Publisher: American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Date: 14-06-2018
DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-17-2701
Abstract: Purpose: Checkpoint kinase 1 inhibitors (CHEK1i) have single-agent activity in vitro and in vivo. Here, we have investigated the molecular basis of this activity. Experimental Design: We have assessed a panel of melanoma cell lines for their sensitivity to the CHEK1i GNE-323 and GDC-0575 in vitro and in vivo. The effects of these compounds on responses to DNA replication stress were analyzed in the hypersensitive cell lines. Results: A subset of melanoma cell lines is hypersensitive to CHEK1i-induced cell death in vitro, and the drug effectively inhibits tumor growth in vivo. In the hypersensitive cell lines, GNE-323 triggers cell death without cells entering mitosis. CHEK1i treatment triggers strong RPA2 hyperphosphorylation and increased DNA damage in only hypersensitive cells. The increased replication stress was associated with a defective S-phase cell-cycle checkpoint. The number and intensity of pRPA2 Ser4/8 foci in untreated tumors appeared to be a marker of elevated replication stress correlated with sensitivity to CHEK1i. Conclusions: CHEK1i have single-agent activity in a subset of melanomas with elevated endogenous replication stress. CHEK1i treatment strongly increased this replication stress and DNA damage, and this correlated with increased cell death. The level of endogenous replication is marked by the pRPA2Ser4/8 foci in the untreated tumors, and may be a useful marker of replication stress in vivo. Clin Cancer Res 24(12) 2901–12. ©2018 AACR.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1071/PC19016
Abstract: Temperate Australian saltmarshes, including those in the southern island state of Tasmania, are considered to be a threatened ecological community under Australian federal legislation. There is a need to improve our understanding of the ecological components, functional relationships and threatening processes of Tasmanian coastal saltmarshes and distil research priorities that could assist recovery actions. A semisystematic review of the literature on Tasmanian coastal saltmarshes supported by expert local knowledge identified 75 studies from 1947 to 2019. Existing understanding pertains to saltmarsh plants, soils, invertebrates and human impacts with ongoing studies currently adding to this knowledge base. Several knowledge gaps remain, and the present review recommends six key priority areas for research: (1) citizen science–organised inventory of (initially) saltmarsh birds, plants and human impacts with the potential for expansion of datasets (2) use of saltmarsh by marine transient species including fish and decapods (3) use of saltmarsh by, and interactions with, native and introduced mammals (4) invertebrates and their interactions with predators (e.g. birds, fish) and prey (e.g. insects, plants, detritus) (5) historic saltmarsh loss and priority areas for conservation (6) monitoring changes to saltmarsh due to both localised human impacts (e.g. grazing, eutrophication, destruction) and global change factors (e.g. climate change, sea-level rise). Addressing these research priorities will help in developing a better understanding of the ecological character of Tasmanian coastal saltmarshes and improve their conservation management.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2020
Start Date: 2021
End Date: 2022
Funder: Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment
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