Does fire control vegetation in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area? Aims: This project aims to discriminate between competing explanations for vegetation patterns in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area: (a) fire (the legacy of Aboriginal burning), or (b) soil. We will do this through a novel, transdisciplinary research program.
Significance: The project expects to create new knowledge essential for achieving evidence-based fire management, as well as to advance a globally important ecol ....Does fire control vegetation in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area? Aims: This project aims to discriminate between competing explanations for vegetation patterns in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area: (a) fire (the legacy of Aboriginal burning), or (b) soil. We will do this through a novel, transdisciplinary research program.
Significance: The project expects to create new knowledge essential for achieving evidence-based fire management, as well as to advance a globally important ecological theory.
Outcomes: Expected outcomes include significantly strengthened fire science and fire management capacity in Tasmania.
Benefit: Benefits should include the protection of globally significant cultural, biological and landscape values that sustain the vibrant Tasmanian tourist economy.Read moreRead less
Ecologically responsible mining to fuel a green energy transition. An energy transition is key to tackling climate change. However, renewable energy is mineral intensive and boosting its supply may create new mining threats to biodiversity. This project aims to facilitate strategic development of ecologically responsible mining. It expects to reveal where new mines will be needed to meet future energy demand, and create innovative tools to predict and mitigate threats to plants and animals. Expe ....Ecologically responsible mining to fuel a green energy transition. An energy transition is key to tackling climate change. However, renewable energy is mineral intensive and boosting its supply may create new mining threats to biodiversity. This project aims to facilitate strategic development of ecologically responsible mining. It expects to reveal where new mines will be needed to meet future energy demand, and create innovative tools to predict and mitigate threats to plants and animals. Expected outcomes include an improved ability to inform sustainable climate and energy policies, leading to strategic investment decisions, cleaner mineral supply chains and conservation outcomes that capture valuable environmental and social benefits and create a competitive advantage for Australia’s mining sector.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100684
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,000.00
Summary
Offsetting effects of development on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This project aims to reform biodiversity offsetting policies by integrating ecosystem services—nature’s contribution to human wellbeing. Current offsets tend to focus on achieving biodiversity goals, potentially at the expense of ecosystem services, a significant problem given global development pressures and the costs of eroding ecosystem services. Expected outputs include understanding how offsets affect ecosystem servic ....Offsetting effects of development on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This project aims to reform biodiversity offsetting policies by integrating ecosystem services—nature’s contribution to human wellbeing. Current offsets tend to focus on achieving biodiversity goals, potentially at the expense of ecosystem services, a significant problem given global development pressures and the costs of eroding ecosystem services. Expected outputs include understanding how offsets affect ecosystem services; and quantified costs and benefits of integrating ecosystem services goals. Such innovation could help secure ecosystem services for long-term human wellbeing.Read moreRead less
Optimising fire management for a resilient future. Optimising fire management for a resilient future. This project aims to quantify how changes in fire frequency, fire season, invasive weeds and climate interact to affect native species’ persistence. Fire risk management is a conundrum for agencies responsible both for protection of life and property and biodiversity conservation. Global change factors (rainfall decline, warming, invasive species, ecosystem fragmentation) interact with changes i ....Optimising fire management for a resilient future. Optimising fire management for a resilient future. This project aims to quantify how changes in fire frequency, fire season, invasive weeds and climate interact to affect native species’ persistence. Fire risk management is a conundrum for agencies responsible both for protection of life and property and biodiversity conservation. Global change factors (rainfall decline, warming, invasive species, ecosystem fragmentation) interact with changes in fire regime (interval and season) associated with prescribed burning to affect native species’ regeneration capacity. Anticipated outcomes are fuel reduction burning policy and management changes that balance and minimise risk of fire to economy, society and biodiversity.Read moreRead less
ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. Despite facing the sixth global mass extinction of species, most conservation management is unevaluated and inefficient. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions will provide international research leadership in tackling the complex problems of environmental management and monitoring in an uncertain world. Working through six Australian universities and six international organisations, the Centre will forge new approaches and ....ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. Despite facing the sixth global mass extinction of species, most conservation management is unevaluated and inefficient. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions will provide international research leadership in tackling the complex problems of environmental management and monitoring in an uncertain world. Working through six Australian universities and six international organisations, the Centre will forge new approaches and tools from ecology, mathematics, statistics, economics and the social sciences. It will lead the world in developing and delivering predictive models and decision-making approaches to improve outcomes in conservation.Read moreRead less
Enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services in production landscapes. This project aims to develop new approaches using causal inference, optimal allocation theory, and spatial statistics to characterise impacts on a diverse suite of ecosystem services. It will endeavour to develop case studies from three continents and generalisations explicitly tested using simulated landscapes. Environmental and agricultural policies promote land sharing (biodiversity-friendly production) or land sparing (p ....Enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services in production landscapes. This project aims to develop new approaches using causal inference, optimal allocation theory, and spatial statistics to characterise impacts on a diverse suite of ecosystem services. It will endeavour to develop case studies from three continents and generalisations explicitly tested using simulated landscapes. Environmental and agricultural policies promote land sharing (biodiversity-friendly production) or land sparing (protected areas, with yield increases elsewhere). Yet the impacts of such policies in diverse contexts and for multiple outcomes are poorly understood. The project could advance our ability to deliver sustainable outcomes and more effective as well as equitable policies for production landscapes.Read moreRead less
Adaptive management of native vegetation condition. Environmental managers face severe uncertainty about how to best restore native habitats. This project will develop an adaptive strategy to improve vegetation management decisions by integrating expert knowledge with monitoring. This will improve the efficiency of management and provide an example of 'learning by doing' in two case study regions.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160101207
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$334,000.00
Summary
Predicting fisheries change from cumulative impacts to aquatic habitats. This project intends to quantify the role that aquatic habitats play in fisheries, and to help identify where to restore degraded aquatic habitats. Fisheries are a globally important resource but their status is declining in many regions, often because of the loss of aquatic habitats. However, the role of habitat in fishery declines is poorly quantified, and new models are needed that integrate existing datasets to attribut ....Predicting fisheries change from cumulative impacts to aquatic habitats. This project intends to quantify the role that aquatic habitats play in fisheries, and to help identify where to restore degraded aquatic habitats. Fisheries are a globally important resource but their status is declining in many regions, often because of the loss of aquatic habitats. However, the role of habitat in fishery declines is poorly quantified, and new models are needed that integrate existing datasets to attribute change in a fishery to change in its habitats. The project aims to develop a new statistical analysis to examine the role of habitat loss in the global status of fisheries and how multiple human impacts to habitats affect fisheries, to decide how we can best protect aquatic habitats.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120102221
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Investigating the susceptibility of native vegetation edges to alien plant invasion: a quantitative study to help prevent and control invasive species. Alien plant invasion is a major threat to biodiversity in national parks and nature reserves. Determining the relative influence of plant characteristics, number of alien plant seeds and availability of light, water and nutrients on weed invasion will indicate what prevention and control strategies should be used to combat invasive plants.
Predicting interactive effects of multiple stressors on marine ecosystems. This project aims to create an innovative model to predict how multiple stressors interact to affect marine ecosystems across large spatial scales. The interactive effects of multiple stressors are poorly quantified in the marine environment, and natural resource managers are not able to confidently incorporate these complex interactions into prioritising management efforts in space and time. The project intends to devel ....Predicting interactive effects of multiple stressors on marine ecosystems. This project aims to create an innovative model to predict how multiple stressors interact to affect marine ecosystems across large spatial scales. The interactive effects of multiple stressors are poorly quantified in the marine environment, and natural resource managers are not able to confidently incorporate these complex interactions into prioritising management efforts in space and time. The project intends to develop models that will predict, a-priori, the type of interactions that may occur. This should enable ecosystem managers to better prioritise actions to more effectively conserve valuable and threatened marine ecosystems.Read moreRead less