Forest Ecology

Forest Ecology & Biodiversity

The Forest Ecology & Biodiversity team has a research program that focuses on sustainable management of forested landscapes and assessing the effectiveness of management rules and practices. We collaborate widely with universities, government departments and specialist consultants. Principally we are involved with:

• Threatened species ecology;
• Designing and analysing landscape scale biodiversity monitoring programs with a focus on cutting edge technology;
• Assessing the implications of management rules and practices and large-scale disturbance (fire) on forest fauna such as koalas;
• Developing predictive spatial models to optimise management of threatened species in forests;
• Monitoring biodiversity in hardwood plantations; and
• Collecting and managing long-term ecological datasets.

Highlighted Projects

1. Countryside Koalas: monitoring koalas on private land
2. Koala response post black summer fires and timber harvesting
3. Koala monitoring
4. Koala tracking and surveys
5. Does thinning cypress regrowth benefit biodiversity?
6. Fauna identification service

Publications

The Forest Ecology team has published papers and reports in many research areas including but not limited to:

• Koalas;
• Bats;
• Hastings River Mouse;
• Eastern Pygmy Possum;
• Biodiversity monitoring;
• Ecological thinning;
• Fauna response to timber harvesting;
• Fauna response to fire;
• Eucalypt flowering and nectar production; and
• Biodiversity in eucalypt plantations.