Understanding the environmental forces that drive plant distribution are critical to protecting our native ecosystems. Australia is an ecologically diverse country with a enormous range of climate conditions. I seek to understand the climate and soil conditions that control the distribution of warm-season (aka C4) and cool-season (aka C3) plants. My goal is to create Australia-wide spatial vegetation models that can predict the distribution of these species across the country and into the future. I also plan to build δ13C leaf isoscape, a map that predicts of carbon isotope ratios of plants at a continental scale. Isoscapes are incredibly useful tools when studying animal migration and diet.
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Marine and terrestrial ecosystems are connected by rivers, which carry nutrients, animals, and human pollutants across the land-sea boundary. We wanted to understand how land-based inputs effect coastal marine habitats. We analysed the concentrations of different metals, trace elements, and isotopes in nearshore prawns and used them as "bio-indicators" of pollution in a busy urban bay (Moreton Bay, Brisbane). We found prawns collected closer to shore had higher concentrations of certain metals and tracers, which tells us nearshore areas are more strongly affected by human activities, like agriculture and sewage. The good news is the concentrations of pollutants in prawns was low, so it does not appear to effect prawn condition and they are safe for human consumption.
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