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PhD Students

Impact of pesticide mixtures used in irrigation agriculture on freshwater ecosystems

The principal aim of the research project is to assess the impacts of commonly used agricultural pesticides when present as mixtures on freshwater aquatic ecosystems.

Impacts of Plantation Age, Fire and Disturbance on Catchment Yield

The problem of sustainable water resource management is a key issue confronting Australia in the 21st century. Increasing demand through increased population size, declining rainfall across parts of temperate Australia and consequently an increasing need to allocate water to maintain ecosystem health and ecosystem service provision are the dominant threats to the maintenance of an adequate supply of water to urban, peri-urban and rural communities.

PhD Students

An annual Call for PhD and Master level scholars is made each September. Applicants are selected both on the basis of their academic record and the merit of the proposed research. Four PhD scholars or equivalent are usually funded, although on occasions a larger number have been supported.

Inland river floodplains: the role of sediment and nutrient exchanges

Rivers around the world are under increasing pressure from a variety of human activities. Effective management of riverine landscapes requires an ecosystem approach and one that recognises the complex interactions between their physical, chemical and biological components. Perceptions of pattern and process are central to our understanding of riverine landscapes.

Fire regimes and biodiversity conservation in the Murray Mallee region

Fire is a major process that shapes the composition and structure of Mallee ecosystems. Ecological burning is commonly used as a management tool in the Murray Mallee to create a diversity of post-fire age-classes, promote patchiness during wildfire and to prevent large, intense fires that homogenise the landscape. Fire management is increasingly focused on maintaining heterogenous fire mosaics of differing fire history under the assumption that ‘pyrodiversity begets biodiversity’. This (more)...

Fire, fragmentation and small mammals; synergistic impacts on ecosystem dynamics

There is currently an important and unique opportunity to examine this question in some detail in southwestern Australia by using a mixture of natural and targeted experiementation. A series of sites is available within which native mammal populations have been reintroduced or have increased recently due to predator control. There are also sites that have been subjected to either no fire or known fire treatments in the recent past, and also areas that are likely to be burned in the near future. We (more)...

Interactive effects of salinity and water regime on ecologically significant waterplants

Aquatic vegetation is represented by a variety of growth forms, including floating, submerged, amphibious, emergent and semi-terrestrial taxa. The persistence of these growth forms in aquatic habitats is strongly influenced by water regime; long-term flooding favours submerged species and excludes most emergent species whereas alternation in wetting and drying may allow both to persist. The artificial homogenisation of naturally fluctuating water regimes and secondary salinisation are major (more)...

Salinity processes in Lake Eyre Basin Rivers

Elizabeth’s research is aimed at understanding the natural processes that control salt and water exchange between surface and groundwater environments in arid zones. This is being achieved through field investigation of the large rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin, located in central Australia. There is very little known about the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin, so the project is heavily field based and a total of five field campaigns have been undertaken. The field campaigns involved drilling soil (more)...