Testing metabolic theories in ecology. There are striking similarities in the way plants and animals take up and use energy (metabolism), despite enormous variation in size and life-style. This project will make the first experimental comparison of the predictions of the two major theories for these broad patterns. The results will significantly progress this controversial and exciting field.
Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration and its components. This project aims to demonstrate how temperate evergreen forests could buffer against climate change. Soil respiration returns around half the carbon taken up by forests to the atmosphere. This project will characterise and quantify how microbes and roots in soils depend on temperature and substrate supply, and so predict how rising temperatures and drought will affect forests as natural carbon sequestration sinks. This project will ....Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration and its components. This project aims to demonstrate how temperate evergreen forests could buffer against climate change. Soil respiration returns around half the carbon taken up by forests to the atmosphere. This project will characterise and quantify how microbes and roots in soils depend on temperature and substrate supply, and so predict how rising temperatures and drought will affect forests as natural carbon sequestration sinks. This project will resolve the roles of environmental drivers of soil respiration across forests; integrate mechanistic understanding of differing plant and microbial responses to temperature within a common modelling framework; and evaluate the implications of this knowledge in predictions of climatic impacts on terrestrial carbon cycling.Read moreRead less
Methane uptake of forest soils. This project will provide a detailed understanding of capacity of soils in Australia to sequester the greenhouse gas methane. It will identify the main factors and processes controlling methane uptake in soils and improve predictive models will allow us to predict methane uptake in the future.
Do cable bacteria reduce nitrogen removal in seasonally anoxic estuaries? The discovery of 'cable bacteria', which can couple redox half reactions centimetres distant from one another by transporting electrons along their filaments, has fundamentally changed the way we view sediment biogeochemistry. This project will investigate the interaction between 'cable bacteria' and enhanced nitrogen recycling in seasonally anoxic estuaries. This project will help improve understanding of how nitrogen is ....Do cable bacteria reduce nitrogen removal in seasonally anoxic estuaries? The discovery of 'cable bacteria', which can couple redox half reactions centimetres distant from one another by transporting electrons along their filaments, has fundamentally changed the way we view sediment biogeochemistry. This project will investigate the interaction between 'cable bacteria' and enhanced nitrogen recycling in seasonally anoxic estuaries. This project will help improve understanding of how nitrogen is retained in seasonally anoxic estuaries which is essential to combatting the problem of eutrophication. In addition the fundamental new understanding of the ecology and biogeochemical processes mediated by 'cable bacteria', may lead to future applications in waste water treatment.Read moreRead less
Testing the importance of large-scale climate factors to plant community assembly following land-use change. This project will examine the native plant species and functional diversity of Australia's rain forest communities to create a predictive framework of how plant communities recover following deforestation. Such a framework is key to focusing conservation efforts in degraded and multi-use landscapes.
A global-scale analysis of functional traits in the face of global change. This project uses a global collaboration to develop a novel method for determining the response of extremely diverse animal taxa to global change. The method focusses on morphological traits and their functions and will improve conservation efforts by predicting the types of ecological processes and species threatened.