Transformation of vegetation by big herbivores, from the Pleistocene to now. The project aims to provide a coherent understanding of the effects of extinct and extant large herbivores on ecosystems over space and time. The structure and distribution of vegetation types is determined not only by climate and soils, but also by the impacts of herbivores and fire as consumers of plant biomass. Recent research has shown how fire shapes the large-scale distribution of vegetation types, but we do not h ....Transformation of vegetation by big herbivores, from the Pleistocene to now. The project aims to provide a coherent understanding of the effects of extinct and extant large herbivores on ecosystems over space and time. The structure and distribution of vegetation types is determined not only by climate and soils, but also by the impacts of herbivores and fire as consumers of plant biomass. Recent research has shown how fire shapes the large-scale distribution of vegetation types, but we do not have an equivalent understanding of the effects of large ground-dwelling herbivores. The project plans to test the effects of such animals on vegetation structure in the Pleistocene, when mega-herbivores were common, and today, and thus to compare the impacts of fire and herbivores on the distribution of vegetation types.Read moreRead less
ARC Australia-New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function. Plant species vary widely in quantitative functional traits, and in their relations to climate, soils and geography. Global generalizations are emerging. Vegetation Function network will reach from plant function into genomics and crop breeding, into palaeoecology and vegetation history, into landscape management for carbon, water and salinity outcomes, into forecasting future ecosystems under global change, and into phylogeny, ....ARC Australia-New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function. Plant species vary widely in quantitative functional traits, and in their relations to climate, soils and geography. Global generalizations are emerging. Vegetation Function network will reach from plant function into genomics and crop breeding, into palaeoecology and vegetation history, into landscape management for carbon, water and salinity outcomes, into forecasting future ecosystems under global change, and into phylogeny, ecoinformatics and evolutionary theory. Across this span, working groups will target nine identified opportunities for breakthrough research. Each research target needs input from two or more disciplines. Together, the nine targets link across disciplines, as a network that spans from genomic to planetary scales.Read moreRead less