PhD and Research Masters

Rafeena Boyle, PhD candidate

Project Title: How do residential gardens contribute towards urban biodiversity? An assessment of garden vegetation, avian use, and residents’ behaviours and attitudes in urban front gardens

Project Background: The Perth metropolitan region is rapidly urbanising and remnant vegetation faces increasing isolation with well documented declines in a range of insectivorous bird species. A number of bird species still found within the urban landscape are declining or thought to be declining. Rafeena is investigating the capacity of private gardens to provide habitat for a range of these species with specific attention to the role of native vegetation in provisioning habitat. Investigating underlying motivations of gardeners is being undertaken as well to identify potential incentives and options for government to increase retention of native biodiversity in the urban landscape.

Personal Background: Rafeena’s primary interests involve environmental education and the management and restoration of urban ecology; in particular how private homeowners can be better engaged in habitat restoration. Having experienced many different cultures and environments while traveling, Rafeena has seen firsthand the importance of maintaining natural ecosystems, especially those with such rich biodiversity as found in her home in the South-west of Australia. Rafeena has previously completed a BSc in Environmental Management with First Class Honours at Murdoch University, studying the impact of distance from bush reserves on bird frequency in residential gardens.

Caron MacNeall, Research Masters with Training

Project Title: Monitoring use of roadside vegetation by native fauna and feral animals in Wheatbelt Western Australia using remote sensing cameras. Project

Description: In agricultural landscapes of Western Australia (primarily the wheatbelt region), roadside reserves of remnant native vegetation are an important component, facilitating landscape connectivity and providing for fauna dispersal between larger isolated bushland fragments. This project seeks to explore, through the use of remote sensing cameras, how native fauna and feral animals utilize these corridors for movement between otherwise isolated remnants of native vegetation. The data collected during this project will contribute to management of roadside vegetation in extensively cleared landscapes as well as assisting in environmental assessments of the vegetation and its contribution of the persistence of the isolated bush remnants it connects. This project will also assist in the development of procedures for remote camera use in research projects and methods for analysis of quantitative data (images and video). This project is supported by the Department of Environment and Conservation through allocation of Scholarship of Women funding (2012 calendar year).

Andrew Nield, PhD candidate

Project Title:
Seed dispersal and the persistence of large-seeded forest species by the emu under global environmental change.

Project Description:
The emerging movement ecology paradigm provides an integrative framework that allows researchers to examine how animal behaviours are linked to and influence plant demographic processes such as growth, survival, reproduction and range expansion/colonisation. The emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), as the sole extant large seed disperser within the Jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forests of southwestern Australia, plays a vital role in the population dynamics of endemic large-seeded species. Disperser loss and decline, particularly of large frugivores such as the emu, is predicted to result in negative demographic consequences for the species that rely on them as a primary dispersal vector. Moreover, the loss of the emu as a long distance dispersal agent inhibits the ability of large-seeded species to respond to global environmental change, such as climate change, undermining the ability of these species to colonise new sites in suitable habitat. The aims of this project are to quantify dispersal of large-seeded species in the Jarrah forests by the emu at sites with contrasting (high/low) emu abundances as a result of human impacts on habitat, and to assess the frequency of long distance dispersal and its role in the population dynamics and persistence of these endemic forest species.

Funding for this research is provided through an ARC grant.
Supervisors: Prof. Neal Enright & Dr. Philip Ladd.

Amity Williams, PhD candidate

Project Title: Climate Change Impacts on the Northern Sandplain Kwongan Vegetation of SW Australia

Project detail: This project examines demographic changes in the native flora in response to experimental manipulations of precipitation and temperature consistent with projected climate change. Study sites are located in high diversity shrublands at Eneabba (approx. 300 km north of Perth) with average rainfall of 493 mm and summer temperatures of 35˚C. Key research questions for plants inhabiting this already warm and dry environment include changes in plant growth, reproduction and survival relative to altered precipitation and temperature. These experiments, conducted using rainout shelters (~40% rain reduction) and temperature chambers seek to measure demographic parameters across four key plant functional types, topographic gradients in water availability, and fire history (recently burned vs. unburned). Responses will inform conservation and fire management across a broad range of high conservation value species and regions in Western Australia and similar shrublands in other Mediterranean regions.

Background: Amity started her PhD at Murdoch in March 2010 and is due to complete in late 2013. Prior to coming to Murdoch she completed a BSc. at the University of Tasmania doing honours in a native temperate grassland on the response of population demography to climate change, specifically elevated carbon dioxide levels and increased temperature. Her main interests lie in plant ecology and population demography, and one of her goals is to become proficient at identifying native flora.

Pawel Waryszak, PhD Candidate

Project Title: Soil seed bank ecology and its role in woodland restoration, Western Australia

Project Detail: My research is focused on restoration of Banksia woodlands by optimizing germination and survival of native species from the soil seed bank contained within transferred topsoil. The project is funded by the WA Department of Environment and Conservation as part of an offset program associated with the development of the Jandakot airport.
In the first year, key research questions are focused on enhancing germination by varying topsoil depth, ripping, and experimental additions of smoke and heat. Subsequent work will examine the survival and persistence of germinants including the provision of artificial shade.
See more on My Webpage

Laily Mukaromah, Master of Philosophy

Project Title: A vegetation classification analysis of Rottnest Island, WA, using hyperspecral imagery Masters in Environmental Science