May 2024: We often think of ecological restoration as involving re-vegetation and tree planting. But what about the abiotic environment? Rocks are important for many animals, so is it necessary to also restore these habitat features?

This is what Dr Isobel Roberts and myself set out to investigate, with a team from the Australian Captial Territory Government.

Interestingly, we found very little response to rock addition, despite a region-wide, replicated restoration effort (12 tonnes of crushed bedrock) and an extensive functional analysis of invertebrate communities (29,164 individual invertebrates from 19 orders).

Rocks did not have a positive or negative effect in the short term (3 years) on invertebrate biodiversity.

There is little risk of negatively impacting invertebrates with rocks, while there might be positive benefits over the longer term, especially for other animals like lizards.

Read the paper to find out more:

Roberts, I., Milner, R.N.C., Howland, B., Lumbers, J., Gilbert, M. & Smith, A.L. 2024. Effects of abiotic restoration through rock addition on invertebrate functional diversity in native temperate grasslands. Restoration Ecology, e14192.

Oct 2023: Island biogeography has provided an essential theoretical framework for understanding habitat loss and fragmentation on land. But to what extent do land-based 'islands' act like actual, oceanic islands?

This was the question we set out to answer in the Biogeography Discussion Group led by A/Prof. Anna Mária Csergő at Trinity College Dublin, back in 2017. Over the years, we compiled an analysed a huge database of published measurements of phenotypic traits and neutral genetic diversity from 1608 populations of 108 plant and animal species at a global scale.

We found that spatial phenotypic variability was higher between island populations than between mainland populations. This means that mainland populations are likely to benefit from higher connectivity between habitat patches compared to islands.

Read the full paper here:

Csergő AM, Healy K, O'Connell DP, Baudraz MEA, Kelly DJ, Ó Marcaigh F, Smith AL, Villellas J, White C, Yang Q and Buckley YM (2023). Spatial phenotypic variability is higher between island populations than between mainland populations worldwide. Ecography, e06787

Charles FE, Brady MJ, Smith AL (2023). Use of road infrastructure for movement by common terrestrial vertebrates. Wildlife Letters DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/wll2.12019

June 2023: The first of our experimental burns started this month and will continue throughout winter. It has been a big first six months getting all of the pre-fire data before the fire season and it is exciting to have the fires underway.

Impressively, our botanist colleague Dr Gabrielle Lebbink recorded 165 plant species across the 32 sites pre-fire. Check out the infographic below for an update.

May 2023: As much as we'd like to avoid it, herbicide is sometimes a necessary part of restoration, to reduce the occurrence of potentially damaging invasive plants.

Our new paper showed however, that herbicide can have negative impacts on native plant species. Spot spraying is usually recommended over boom spraying to minimise the exposure of nontarget species to chemicals. Contrary to this widespread belief, we found that spot spraying had a higher surface coverage and caused more negative impacts on native plants than boom spraying.

These findings led us to develop a decision tree, which can be used by conservation managers to optimise herbicide application under different grassland conditions.

This was a collaboration with Dr Richard Milner and associates from Australian Capital Territory Government, with assistance by my UQ Research Assistant Raagini Kanjithanda.

Smith, A.L., Kanjithanda, R.M., Hayashi, T., French, J. and Milner, R.N.C. (2023), Reducing herbicide input and optimising spray method can minimise non-target impacts on native grassland plant species. Ecological Applications, e2864. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2864

Managing interactions between fire regimes and invasive plants
  
Supervisors: Dr Annabel Smith & Dr Shane Campbell
 
Location: University of Queensland, Australia
 
A long history of fire has shaped many ecosystems globally, but thousands of species are now threatened with extinction because climate change, inappropriate management and invasive plants are rapidly changing fire regimes. Effective fire management is more complex than simply re-instating a historical fire regime because ecosystems might require a specific initial management regime (e.g. more frequent burning) to re-establish native plant communities and increase their resilience to future invasion.
 
In this project, we will establish an evidence-based management framework for grassy woodlands in southeast Queensland, by evaluating how variation in fire frequency affects the composition and function of native plant communities. Our innovative landscape-scale fire experiment will tackle invasive grasses across the Hidden Vale Research Station to secure and restore Australian native species and ecosystems for future generations.
 
We will educate a PhD student to become an emerging leader in fire management for plant conservation. The successful candidate will be trained by a botanist to identify native and non-native grassland flora and develop a botanical database documenting plant functional traits. The student will develop high-level technical skills in data analysis, scientific writing and scientific publication, setting them up for an exciting research career.
 
Suitable candidates: This project would suit someone with a keen interest in plant ecology and fire management. Applicants should have a strong academic track record and willingness to work in the field with plants and on the computer with data!
 
Funding is available for the running costs of this project and we are accepting applications for honours and PhD projects.
 
How to apply: Please contact Annabel (annabel.smith@uq.edu.au) or Shane (shane.campbell@uq.edu.au) with an expression of interest and your CV.
 
Shortlisted applicants will apply for the for the competitive UQ Graduate School Scholarship for tuition and stipend. Successful candidates will be eligible to apply for the competitive Hidden Vale Wildlife Top-up Scholarship.

During the Ecological Society Conference in Wollongong, Dec 2022, our group came up with a new name: DisruptEcology Lab.

A lot of our work revolves around disturbance ecology; but disturbance doesn't capture all of what we do. Our work is disruptive from an ecological point of view - whether we are adding 240 tonnes of rocks to a grassland or examining the impact of disruptive mega fires... But at the same time, we are trying to disrupt how we do ecology and environmental science, from challenging colonial narratives to smashing institutional repurposing!

Thanks to my lab members for their contributions! From left: Felicity Charles (PhD student); Rhiannon Bird (honours graduate and RA); Dr Annabel Smith (lab lead); Dr Isobel Roberts (RA); and Eleanor McCall (masters student).

The group gave excellent talks during the conference on (1) the influence of changing fire regimes on plant-animal interactions; (2) mammal community responses to megafires in rainforest; (3) the importance of language and culture in Indigenous land management; and (4) the impact of abiotic habitat restoration during a severe drought.

March 2022: The invasive grass–fire cycle is a widely documented feedback phenomenon in which invasive grasses increase vegetation flammability and fire frequency, resulting in further invasion and compounded effects on fire regimes. Few studies have examined the role of short-term adaptation in driving the invasive grass–fire cycle, despite invasive species often thriving after introduction to new environments.

In our new paper, led by UQ student Binyin Di, we found limited evidence that roadside burning consistently increased genetic diversity and adaptive potential in C. ciliaris; evolutionary and breeding history more strongly shaped genetic structure. Roadside burning could therefore continue to be used for managing biomass in this species, with continued monitoring. Our study provides a framework for detecting fire-related changes on a genetic level–a process that could be used as an early warning system to detect the invasive grass–fire cycle in future.

Di B, Firn J, Buckley YM, Lomas K, Pausas JG, Smith AL (2022) The impact of roadside burning on genetic diversity in a high-biomass invasive grass Evolutionary Applications https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.13369

Sept 2021: My colleague Dr Jesus Villellas from our Trinity College Dublin days has recently published the next chapter in the Plantago lanceolata story, through the PLANTPOPNET network, led by Prof. Yvonne Buckley. Jesus is now at Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.

Combining a multi-treatment greenhouse experiment with global observational field data of the short-lived herb Plantago lanceolata, we (1) disentangled genetic and plastic responses of functional traits to environmental drivers and (2) assessed how genetic differentiation and plasticity shape observational trait–environment relationships. Reproductive traits (more closely related to fitness) showed distinct genetic differentiation that largely determined observational patterns. Vegetative traits showed instead higher plasticity and opposite genetic and plastic responses, masking the genetic component underlying field-observed trait variation.

Check out the paper :

Villellas J, Ehrlén J, Crone EE, Csergő AM, Garcia MB, Laine A-L, Roach DA, Salguero-Gómez R, Wardle GM, Childs DZ, Elderd BD, Finn A, Munné-Bosch S, Bachelot B, Bódis J, Bucharova A, Caruso CM, Catford JA, Coghill M, Compagnoni A, Duncan RP, Dwyer JM, Ferguson A, Fraser LH, Griffoul E, Groenteman R, Hamre LN, Helm A, Kelly R, Laanisto L, Lonati M, Münzbergová Z, Nuche P, Olsen SL, Oprea A, Pärtel M, Petry WK, Ramula S, Rasmussen PU, Enri SR, Roeder A, Roscher C, Schultz C, Skarpaas O, Smith AL, Tack AJM, Töpper JP, Vesk PA, Vose GE, Wandrag E, Wingler A, Buckley YM (2021). Phenotypic plasticity masks range-wide genetic differentiation for vegetative but not reproductive traits in a short-lived plant. Ecology Letters, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13858, PDF.

Nov 2020: Last summer, many Australians were shocked to see fires sweep through the wet tropical rainforests of Queensland, where large and severe fires are almost unheard of. This is just one example of how human activities are changing fire patterns around the world, with huge consequences for wildlife.

In a new paper, led by Dr Luke Kelly, and published in Science, we reveal how changes in fire activity threaten more than 4,400 species across the globe with extinction. This includes 19% of birds, 16% of mammals, 17% of dragonflies and 19% of legumes that are classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.

See the paper, or read the summary in The Conversation.

Kelly LT, Giljohann KM, Duane A, Aquilué N, Archibald S, Batllori E, Bennett AF, Buckland ST, Canelles Q, Clarke MF, Fortin M-J, Hermoso V, Herrando S, Keane RE, Lake FK, McCarthy MA, Morán-Ordóñez A, Parr CL, Pausas JG, Penman TD, Regos A, Rumpff L, Santos JL, Smith AL, Syphard AD, Tingley MW, Brotons L (2020). Fire and biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Science 370, eabb0355.