April 2025: Fire has played a key role in the evolution of ecological structure and function, but contemporary changes in fire regimes are driving global biodiversity declines. The effects of these changes are fairly well documented for plant and animal populations, but less is known about how fire influences, and is influenced by, specialized plant–animal interactions.

A new paper by Smith Lab PhD Student Felicity Charles, synthesised the literature to show how fire regime changes impact fire-dependent specialist plant–animal interactions and potentially drive eco-evolutionary dynamics. Felicity identified mutualistic (pollination, seed dispersal and food provision), commensal (habitat provision) and antagonistic (seed predation, herbivory and parasitism) plant–animal interactions and summarised the traits involved in these interactions.

This work is a step-forward in understanding how traits interact across species and fire regimes and will help guide future fire ecology research.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks’. This theme issue highlights the unprecedented importance of transdisciplinary research and adaptive management to address escalating fire risks in a changing climate.

Charles FE, Reside AE, Smith AL (2025). The influence of changing fire regimes on specialised plant-animal interactions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 380, 20230448.

Feb 2025: Global increases in wildfires are making rainforests vulnerable to fire, especially at the margins.

Smith Lab PhD student Rhiannon Bird, just published her honours research, showing that fire in rainforest margins reduced mammal diversity and caused variation in how rainforest-associated species used their habitat. Fire in surrounding eucalypt forest was also associated with reduced movement of a generalist species, the bush rat, Rattus fuscipes.

Modified habitat use and behaviour could be detected up to 15 months post-fire, highlighting the ongoing impacts of fire in rainforest margins.

Bird RR, Zsoldos RR, Jimenez Sandoval MV, Watson SJ, Smith AL (2025). Wildfire in rainforest margins is associated with variation in mammal diversity and habitat use. Wildlife Research 52, WR24103

Jan 2025: To kick off the year, Smith Lab graduate Dr Tamielle Brunt published the last two of her PhD thesis chapters.

The first, featured on the cover of Ecology and Evolution, showed that platypus rarely occur in streams where water flows are reduced, such as shallow, dry streams. Restoring waterway connectivity and food resources for platypus through good waterway management, especially during drought, can therefore maintain these iconic creatures. Read the paper here.

The second, published in Animal Conservation, showed that removal of vegetation restricts platypus gene flow in urban areas. Restoration of water flow and riverine vegetation can therefore to help maintain connectivity and gene flow - helping platypus adapt to changing environments. Read the paper here.

Huge congratulations to Dr Brunt for having all of her PhD thesis chapters published!

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 ([email protected]) or Shane ([email protected]) 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.