Drought effects on soil carbon and nitrogen cycling mediated by rhizosphere processes. There is much uncertainty about how drought caused by global warming will affect agricultural sustainability in Australia. This project will provide new knowledge about plant-soil interactions affecting carbon and nutrient cycling and will make predictions about long-term soil carbon storage and agricultural productivity in response to drought.
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.
Next-generation vegetation model based on functional traits. Global vegetation models try to answer big questions, such as the effects of climate change and carbon dioxide (CO2) on ecosystems and vice versa. But as present models are outdated and give inconsistent results, the project is planning a new, more robust model that will fully exploit recent advances in plant functional ecology and earth system science.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100043
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$454,000.00
Summary
Kangaroos, feral herbivores and bushfires: Consequences for forest dynamics. This project aims to investigate the functional role of native and introduced herbivores in forest ecosystems using a powerful, highly replicated, herbivore exclosure experiment. This project expects to create new knowledge of the effects of mammalian herbivores, particularly kangaroos and invasive deer, on forest plants, soils and productivity. Expected outcomes include fundamental insights into above and belowground i ....Kangaroos, feral herbivores and bushfires: Consequences for forest dynamics. This project aims to investigate the functional role of native and introduced herbivores in forest ecosystems using a powerful, highly replicated, herbivore exclosure experiment. This project expects to create new knowledge of the effects of mammalian herbivores, particularly kangaroos and invasive deer, on forest plants, soils and productivity. Expected outcomes include fundamental insights into above and belowground interactions in forests, and an enhanced capacity to predict effects of changing herbivore populations across environmental gradients, and following bushfire. This should produce significant benefits for forest management in Australia, allowing informed, targeted, and pre-emptive management of invasive herbivore populations.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100606
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$450,400.00
Summary
Effects of environmental change on seafood micronutrients: a SE Asian focus. This project aims to track variability in flows of essential micronutrients through marine food webs, to quantify how environmental changes will affect micronutrient supply to humans in seafood – findings that will be highly significant as governments grapple with increases in both malnutrition and ecological degradation. Expected outcomes: world-first models for accurately estimating nutrient production from SE Asian r ....Effects of environmental change on seafood micronutrients: a SE Asian focus. This project aims to track variability in flows of essential micronutrients through marine food webs, to quantify how environmental changes will affect micronutrient supply to humans in seafood – findings that will be highly significant as governments grapple with increases in both malnutrition and ecological degradation. Expected outcomes: world-first models for accurately estimating nutrient production from SE Asian reef fisheries up to 2050, under conditions of predicted climate change. Major expected benefits: new capacity to plan for food and nutrition security into an uncertain future, for Australia, our region, and beyond; with improvements to human nutrition and health, in accord with UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger).Read moreRead less
Multi-service assessment of intertidal treatment wetlands. This project aims to investigate the use of constructed intertidal wetlands to reduce nitrogen pollution while providing co-benefits including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. This research will generate a holistic assessment of the services, disservices, and cost-effectiveness of intertidal treatment wetlands compared to traditional wastewater treatment approaches. Expected outcomes include a full-scale multi-disciplinary environm ....Multi-service assessment of intertidal treatment wetlands. This project aims to investigate the use of constructed intertidal wetlands to reduce nitrogen pollution while providing co-benefits including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. This research will generate a holistic assessment of the services, disservices, and cost-effectiveness of intertidal treatment wetlands compared to traditional wastewater treatment approaches. Expected outcomes include a full-scale multi-disciplinary environmental and economic assessment of a constructed treatment wetland in a new urban development, providing industry and government partners the knowledge required to broaden uptake of intertidal wetlands as a cost-effective solution to growing levels of coastal anthropogenic pollution.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101654
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$335,528.00
Summary
Assessing Eucalyptus forest responses to rising CO2 and climate change. Rising atmospheric CO2 and the associated changes in rainfall regimes are rapidly reshaping how Australia’s forest ecosystems function and underpin our daily life. Whether Australia’s native Eucalyptus trees can withstand the impacts of climate extremes such as drought and heat under rising CO2 is a crucial question that this project aims to resolve. Using an innovative framework that integrates novel knowledge, data assimil ....Assessing Eucalyptus forest responses to rising CO2 and climate change. Rising atmospheric CO2 and the associated changes in rainfall regimes are rapidly reshaping how Australia’s forest ecosystems function and underpin our daily life. Whether Australia’s native Eucalyptus trees can withstand the impacts of climate extremes such as drought and heat under rising CO2 is a crucial question that this project aims to resolve. Using an innovative framework that integrates novel knowledge, data assimilation and ecosystem modelling, this project will provide critically needed evidence to disentangle the multifaceted impacts of climate change to Eucalyptus trees. This will help reduce the predictive uncertainty in assessing the vulnerability and resilience of Eucalyptus forests in the changing Australian landscape. Read moreRead less
Will trees get enough nitrogen to sustain productivity in elevated CO2? The project proposes to explore how tissue nitrogen declines in future elevated carbon dioxide (eCO2) by studying the availability of soil nitrogen to plants and use of nitrogen by Eucalyptus woodland trees. Plant canopy nitrogen concentrations decline in nearly every large-scale eCO2 study done on native soils. The project plans to explore how changes in ecosystem nitrogen balance occur, by investigating if leaf nitrogen de ....Will trees get enough nitrogen to sustain productivity in elevated CO2? The project proposes to explore how tissue nitrogen declines in future elevated carbon dioxide (eCO2) by studying the availability of soil nitrogen to plants and use of nitrogen by Eucalyptus woodland trees. Plant canopy nitrogen concentrations decline in nearly every large-scale eCO2 study done on native soils. The project plans to explore how changes in ecosystem nitrogen balance occur, by investigating if leaf nitrogen declines under eCO2 due to the balance of plant activity versus changes in soil nitrogen availability. The outcomes are central to knowing the extent to which extra nitrogen ‘feeds’ the eCO2 fertilisation response and sustains long-term increases in productivity. Expected outcomes may support the development of management options to sustain future forest productivity.Read moreRead less
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
Resilience of eucalypts to future droughts. This project aims to examine how resilient Eucalyptus species are to future droughts by combining data synthesis, manipulative experiments and modelling. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, magnitude and duration of future droughts, with major environmental and socio-economic consequences for Australia. Current predictive capacity is extremely limited: experiments are limited in scale and cannot capture important global change interac ....Resilience of eucalypts to future droughts. This project aims to examine how resilient Eucalyptus species are to future droughts by combining data synthesis, manipulative experiments and modelling. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, magnitude and duration of future droughts, with major environmental and socio-economic consequences for Australia. Current predictive capacity is extremely limited: experiments are limited in scale and cannot capture important global change interactions, whilst models do not represent the functional characteristics and adaptions of eucalypts. This project will develop a strong evidence- and process-based understanding to quantify the functional behaviour of drought-adapted Eucalyptus species and leverage this insight to make future model projections.Read moreRead less