Research Interests

My research interests span a range of interlinked topics of significance in both natural and agricultural systems. I focus on identifying if behavioural, ecological and physiological traits of insect species are predictable and repeatable, and whether these traits can then be scaled up to predict changes within and between ecological communities: this is fundamental to understanding biotic adaptations to a rapidly changing climate. Specifically I am developing novel methods for predicting the effects of climate change on community structure and function using a holistic approach that combines: advances in statistical methods; the study of functional morphology to understand community structure, function and resilience; large-scale surveys; and experimentation. I am also using a multi-dimensional framework for measuring insect responses to extreme events at different temporal and spatial scales, incorporating an assessment along a climatic gradient and among seasons: this includes doing direct assessments of the impact of a changing climate using field, glasshouse and laboratory experiments, assessing insect growth, reproductive and physiology traits. I am also working about better ways to understand how pest species and their natural enemies will respond to climate change, and what we need to do to better manage them into the future.

Some current projects include:

NSW land managers affect the resilience of terrestrial biodiversity by land cover and land use change. Rarely are the impacts of these changes on the resilience of terrestrial biodiversity considered under a changing climate. This project will: synthesise large-scale terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity survey data spanning altitudinal, land cover and land use gradients to understand the independent and combined influences of climate, land cover and land use on the distribution of major elements of terrestrial biodiversity; and, generate experimental data on the physiological tolerances of these same species to better understand their resilience to predicted climate change scenarios for NSW.

Invertebrates dominate biodiversity and are essential to ecosystem services. However, existing knowledge gaps prevent the prediction of how well terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity will adapt to changing climates in fragmented landscapes. Filling these knowledge gaps is essential to the design of new landscapes which confer maximum biodiversity resilience. Our project seeks to fill these knowledge gaps by addressing questions such as: (i) are responses of organisms to a changing climate idiosyncratic, or are there underlying generalities that can be made based on evolutionary relationships, or ecological associations, and (ii) what influence does land cover and land use change have on these generalities.

This project will determine the relative importance of climate, host plant evolutionary history (phylogeny), and host plant traits on structuring insect herbivore assemblages. Our findings will significantly increase our understanding of insect ecology, enhance Australia’s research leadership in animal-plant interactions and train graduate students within a strong international collaboration. By identifying Climate Change Response Groups, this research will also develop powerful predictive tools for understanding the impacts of climate change on herbivore-plant interactions worldwide.

This research will:

Aim: To develop a new holistic approach to predicting the impacts of climate change on community structure and function. Significance: We will develop a highly novel framework and a new toolset for understanding the effects of climate change on ecological communities, a critical research priority for Australia. Our novel multi-disciplinary approach integrates: cutting-edge statistical methods for predicting climate change effects on community structure; large-scale field surveys of grassland invertebrate communities; use of morphological traits to study function; a transplant experiment to ground-truth our predictions. Expected outcome: A unique and robust approach to predicting community responses to climate change, with global impact.

The primary aims of this project are to develop and implement an Integrated Pest Management strategy for northern NSW which:

These aims will be achieved by (1) development of fast and efficient methods to give growers and advisors information (2) assessing current and previous research strategies (and their success) in the region and determining the best way to adapt changing farming practices and climate change into IPM via Area Wide Management techniques; and (3) using active adaptive management and action research methods to assess the success of the information and service we are providing to our stakeholders.