DNA TIMBER TRACKING
Developing DNA timber tracking methods for Indonesian meranti
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Elly Dormontt
Globally illegal logging is a major problem driving habitat destruction, greenhouse gas emissions and loss of income for forest dwelling communities. This project will develop a range of DNA markers that can be applied along timber supply chains from logging concessions in Indonesia to verify whether timber claimed to have come from a legal and sustainable source does indeed do so. This project is funded by the International Tropical Timber Organization and is supported by the Indonesian and Australian Government.
FUNCTIONAL RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION
Landscape and conservation genetics
(1 Honours position & 1 summer scholarship)
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Martin Breed
Habitat fragmentation is a process that breaks up populations, reduces their size, restricts movement between remnant populations and in some cases causes local extinction. Add to this the pressure of invasive species and climate change and we have a potent cocktail of drivers with which biodiversity must now contend. This project will use next generation sequencing to examine the distribution of genetic variation of a select set of plant species in the Mt Lofty (incl. KI) and Flinders Ranges, plus explore genomic signatures of selection along environmental gradients. This information will be used to understand:
--where important refugial populations are that need conservation prioritisation
--levels of gene flow between patches to assist in wildlife corridor planning
--restoration suggestions to maximise the chances of species persisting into a changed future
Building the evidence base for restoration in South Australia
(3 Honours positions & 3 summer scholarships)
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Martin Breed
Globally, an estimated 1 to 6 billion ha of land are categorised as degraded (as a reference, Russia is ca. 2 billion ha).Only 10% of the native woodland remains in the Mt Lofty Ranges and even less remains on the Adelaide plains. These appalling statistics have stimulated ambitious restoration targets such as The Bonn Challenge, which was recently extended to 350 million ha by 2030 at the September 2014 UN Climate Summit in New York. These commitments have inspired a huge global effort for restoration. In China alone, 40 million ha are designated for restoration by 2020, an area roughly the size of California. In Australia, the government has committed $2.55 billion to an emissions reduction fund to cover emissions abatement and sequestration activities, which includes restoration plantings. However, ecological restoration is a maturing discipline, and there is often a considerable lag between conceptual advances and the practice and policy that incorporates it and a number of important knowledge gaps in restoration science require urgent research.
These projects will be based on large experimental plantings across the Mt Lofty Ranges and the Murray-Darling Basin in South Australia, with the possibility to work in Yunnan Provenance, China. They will require industry and end-user engagement (e.g. State Government agencies, NRMs, NGOs).
Project 1 will combine population genetics with ecophysiology to explore the following questions:
--to what degree do local seeds perform best?
--how does habitat fragmentation impact adaptive capacity?
--does mixing seeds from a number of sources increase planting resilience to climate change?
Project 2 will combine next generation sequencing eDNA approaches with field surveys (ofplants & flying insects) to explore the following questions:
--to what extend do restoration plantings bring back biodiversity?
--does the diversity of restoration plantings affect the magnitude and/or rate of return?
--what are the risks vs. benefits of using eDNA approaches compared with traditional field surveys?
CONTINENTAL BIOGEOGRAPHY AND MONITORING
Macro-ecological patterns
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Greg Guerin & the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
What can continental-scale inventory data tell us about ecological boundaries and major drivers of ecological heterogeneity? This project will map and model large biological and environmental datasets provided through portals such as the Atlas of Living Australia, Australia’s Virtual Herbarium, e-Mast and AEKOS to explore major sub-continental to continental ecological patterns such as beta diversity and productivity–biodiversity relationships.
Sampling communities
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Greg Guerin & the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Large biological datasets are becoming available through portals such as the Atlas of Living Australia and AEKOS but work is needed to understand how sampling (usually for inventory purposes) influences our conclusions around macro-ecological processes. This project analyses these data with selected re-sampling in the field to determine how sampling intensity, design and biases (spatial and taxonomic), as well as type and spatial grain of analysis, influence interpretations of ecosystem heterogeneity.
How monitoring variables vary in relation to climate, vegetationand landscapealong a north south environmental gradient.
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Greg Guerin & Dr Ben Sparrow
Will look at the variation in the variables collected inausplotsbased on climate, vegetation and landform. Probably include spatial autocorrelation to determine at what distances these variables are operating. Based on the North/South Research transect. The panel would assist in refining to scope of the project.
Scoring biodiversity condition
Prof Andrew Lowe, Assoc Prof Nikki Thurgate & Dr Ben Sparrow
Ausplots recently completed a project for the federal department for environment to determine what constituted biodiversity condition, what attributes were necessary to measure it in the field and using remote measures. Our new field protocols now collect all the required measures. The project did not attempt to define reference states, or synthesise the collected information to provide condition scores. This project would define a reference state, develop a method of scoring condition using the collected information and test this in a few example ecosystems.
FUNCTIONAL VEGETATION SCIENCE
Functional mechanisms involved in community co-existence
Prof Andrew Lowe, Dr Greg Guerin & the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
This project examines functional variation in ecological communities in different environments, under different levels of stress and management, and at different ecological (within and between individuals, populations and communities) and spatial scales. The aim is to understand functional mechanisms involved in co-existence and resilience to provide basic information on Australian ecosystems and their restoration.
Can seed banks predict community response to climate change? Observational and experimental approaches.
Prof Andrew Lowe, Assoc Prof Zdravko Baruch
Migration is one of the responses of plants to climate change which influences future community composition and functioning. As plants would respond differently, it is important to determine which species populations would be more or less affected. Soil seed bank size and makeup of representative species at the leading and trailing edges of putative migration routes could predict the resulting composition of newly established communities. Correlating space instead of time for seed banks samplings and analysing seedling emergence under controlled conditions could contribute to predict future community composition.
Is awn length in grasses related to fire frequency? The Australian rangelands perspective.
Prof Andrew Lowe, Assoc Prof Zdravko Baruch
It has been suggested that hygroscopic awns might be an adaptation in grasses native to fire-prone environments. Diaspores possessing longer awns achieve greater burial depth when sequentially wetted and dried, thus increasing their probability of survival since soil shields the seed from high fire temperature. One of the ways to associate the selective value of grasses awns is to measure its length in environmental settings with different fire regimes. The associated hypothesis is that locations with lower fire frequency would have, on average, shorter awns.