Tanya
Bailey
PhD student
University of
Tasmania
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Enjoying the grounds of Sydney University during
a break in proceedings at the ESA conference are UTAS delegates
Natasha Wiggins, Dr Mike Perring, Jennifer Sanger, Christina Borzak
and Helen Stephens.
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A contingent of eight CRC staff and students, attended the 33rd
Australian
Ecological Society (ESA) Annual Conference in Sydney in
December last year. Two of the students - Bryony Horton and
Tanya Bailey - were particulaly noticed for their high calibre
research and presenation, a testament to the high quality of
students and research coming out of the CRC.
The conference theme was "Interactions in Science, Interactions
in Nature". Dr Simon Grove (Forestry Tasmania), Dr Neil
Davidson, Dr Robert Barbour, PhD students Tanya Bailey, Christina
Borzak, Bryony Horton, Helen Stephens and Honours student Jennifer
Sanger (all from UTAS) attended the conference at the University of
Sydney.
Each morning and afternoon started with a plenary session of up to
45 minutes. These were presented by long-established and respected
ecologists who were adept at talking about their work and their
place in ecology with the full benefit of hindsight. The
talks were extremely interesting and inspirational both for
well-established scientists and students just starting their
careers.
As recipient of the inaugural Jill
Landsberg Fellowship in 2007 (a grant of $6,000 to support the
field-based research in applied ecology), Bryony Horton presented
her research - “Ectomycorrhizal community composition in
relation to canopy health and understorey vegetation in Tasmanian
Eucalyptus delegatensis forest” - to the full
conference audience. The talk was received warmly as it was
well-structured, fluent and beautifully illustrated with photos of
fungi and E. delegatensis forest. Bryony was a deserving
recipient of this significant student award.
Most of the rest of the programme consisted of five streams of
symposia running concurrently, with each presentation allotted 15
minutes. Over 30 different symposium topics ranged from climate
change, fire, native seeds, species management and plant-animal
interactions through to ecological monitoring, ecosystem services
and spatial services. An afternoon of ‘speed talks’ (5
minutes’ duration each) stimulated interest but the format
was distracting with people shifting between the five lecture-rooms
every few minutes. Posters were displayed in the dining area and an
evening poster and drinks session was well-attended.
Forestry Tasmania was a symposium sponsor, with Simon Grove manning
a display booth promoting the Warra Long Term Ecological Research
site. Simon also provided a poster - “Turnover in beetle
assemblages with altitude: baseline data from a long-term study on
Mount Weld, southern Tasmania” - which received a good amount
of interest during the poster session. Simon was disappointed by
the venue of the conference as the lecture rooms were cramped and
airless and separated from the food, posters and sponsor displays
by a busy road.
Other delegates agreed that the venue was uncomfortable and were
highly disappointed by the overly packaged lunch boxes and lack of
seating, for which the organisers later apologised. The University
of Tasmania delegation usually escaped outside to enjoy lunch
breaks together in the beautiful grounds of Sydney University.
Tanya Bailey, a UTAS student
based in Launceston, presented a poster on her PhD work -
“Recreating the eucalypt recruitment niche in degraded
remnants in production landscapes” - for which she was
awarded the Australian Flora
Foundation prize for "best poster on the biology or cultivation
of an Australian plant" (click here to
download a pdf of Tanya's poster). Tanya met a number
of scientists working in the fields of restoration ecology and fire
ecology during the poster session and received some very
instructive feed back and suggestions. To put faces to names in the
scientific literature, to listen to their work and to have
discussions with some was a big benefit of the conference for
Tanya. She also met two UTAS PhD students who were also based in
Launceston but whose paths she had never crossed before. Sometimes
you have to travel interstate to meet people that live on your
doorstep!
Robert Barbour gave a presentation in the insect-plant
interactions symposium on work done in collaboration with a number
of scientists from UTAS, University of Tennessee and Northern
Arizona University: “Characterising the ‘long
arm’ of the gene in Eucalyptus globulus: genetic
impacts at the community and ecosystem level".
Christina Borzak presented
a talk in the complex interaction symposium. Her talk,
“Indirect plant-herbivore interactions in a eucalypt
system”, reported on her work on the pattern and consequence
of browsing and its flow-on effects to dependent foliar
communities.
Neil Davidson presented work undertaken with Dugald Close and
Tanya Bailey on “Dependence of seedling regeneration in dry
eucalypt forest on coarse woody debris and hot fire: implications
for restoration” in the applied management symposium.
Unfortunately Neil’s talk was timetabled in the last session
on the last day of the conference. Despite this a good number of
people waited around to hear his talk. In hindsight, this
presentation may have been better placed in the fire ecology
symposium which was well attended on the first day. Neil really
enjoyed the conference, particularly the plenary sessions which he
found excellent.
Jennifer Sanger presented a poster on her work with
Eucalyptus gunnii ssp.divaricata: “Is the
most cold-tolerant Australian eucalypt shifting its regeneration
niche in response to climate change?” (Click here to
download a pdf of Jen's poster.) The conference was a great
experience for Jen. She thought it was an excellent way to see what
research was being conducted around the country and to get some
feedback on her own project.
Helen Stephens presented a
poster on her work “Aggregated retention and mammal
conservation in old growth forests.” Click here to
download a pdf of Helen's poster.
Overall, despite the issues with the venue, the conference was
considered to be varied, interesting, instructional and a great
networking opportunity.
Biobuzz issue eight, March 2009
