News
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How seeds help us learn about fire in Australian landscapes
Ella Plumanns Pouton, Luke Kelly and team have a new paper on the timing of fires and plant species occurrence in the soil seedbank, in Journal of Applied Ecology. Ella led a team that sampled the soil seedbank across 57 sites that represent a range of fire frequencies (1–9 fires in 81 years) and time since fire (1–81 years). And through a 15-month germination experiment, …
19 September, 2024 -
Using traits to predict the influence of fire on plants
Ella Plumanns Pouton, Luke Kelly and team have a new paper on using plant functional types to predict the influence of fire on species relative abundance – published in Biological Conservation. Ella and team first brought together a wealth of knowledge on the traits that plant species exhibit in response to fire, including whether or not they are stimulated to resprout …
17 April, 2024 -
The use of nest boxes to support bird conservation
Eliza Thompson, Luke Kelly and Rod Keenan have a new paper on nest boxes and animal conservation in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. Nest boxes are widely used to supplement natural tree cavities used by fauna, particularly in “working lands” where large, old trees are cleared or harvested. Eliza led a systematic review to provide a global overview of the scientific …
3 November, 2023 -
Presentation at Half-Earth Day 2023
Luke Kelly was invited to speak at Half-Earth Day 2023, held in Montreal, Canada. Hosted by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, Half-Earth Day brings together people from around the world and across disciplines to share their unique perspectives on how to ensure the health of the planet for future generations. Luke spoke about how human activities are reshaping patterns of fire across …
25 October, 2023 -
Understanding Fire Regimes for a Better Anthropocene
Luke Kelly, Ella Plumanns Pouton and colleagues have a new paper titled Understanding Fire Regimes for a Better Anthropocene – published in Annual Review of Environment and Resources. We used satellite data to create global maps of where and how fires are burning. We calculated about 3.98 million square kilometres of Earth’s land surface burns each year. We also examined research …
20 September, 2023 -
Biodynamos at the 2023 Ecological Society of Australia Conference
Eliza Thompson, Julianna Santos and Ella Plumanns Pouton will be presenting at the 2023 Ecological Society of Australia Conference in Darwin from July 3 - 7. They will be showcasing their work on: bird conservation in landscapes containing a mix of eucalypt plantations and remnant vegetation, genetic diversity of animals in different types of "fire mosaics", and serotiny and plant life-cycles …
3 July, 2023 -
Plant dynamics and fire regimes
Ella, Luke and colleagues have a new paper on plant maturity and fire regimes in the journal Fire Ecology. This field study asked: how do time since fire and fire severity influence the occurrence of mature plants? The work concentrated on three serotinous species (species that hold seeds in the canopy) in the biodiverse Gariwerd landscape of Victoria. A positive influence of time …
2 May, 2023 -
Luke Kelly has been awarded the Woodward Medal in Science and Technology
Luke has just been awarded the 2022 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his research examining the impact of global fire patterns on the extinction risk of thousands of species. A Woodward Medal is awarded annually by the University of Melbourne for research that made a significant contribution to knowledge in a field of science and technology, or humanities and …
3 January, 2023