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Dr Clive McAlpine
Chief Investigator
Dr McAlpine’s research is at the interface of landscape ecology, biodiversity conservation and climate change. He is an internationally recognised landscape ecologist with a proven track record in biodiversity conservation in fragmented landscape, environmental management, modelling land cover change, and climate impacts of land cover change. A recent study led by Dr McAlpine found that land clearing made the climate of southeast Australia significantly hotter and dryer, and hence highlighted the need to include native vegetation in climate change mitigation. The geographic focus of his research is eastern Australia, and includes tropical and sub-tropical landscapes such as the nationally-listed Brigalow ecosystems and tropical savannas of northern Australia. His work underpins biodiversity conservation programs being developed by regional natural resource management bodies in Queensland and northern New South Wales and the Australian government to reduce human land use/ land cover change impacts on Australia’s regional climate.
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Dr Martine Maron
Chief Investigator
Dr Martine Maron has been involved in biodiversity research in eastern Australia for ten years. Her focus is in three key interrelated areas: the processes behind the impacts of fragmentation and habitat degradation; implications of agricultural intensification; and environmental management and biodiversity policy. Much of her research is in Queensland and northern New South Wales, and western Victoria. She has a particular interest in non-eucalypt woodland systems and biodiversity conservation in agricultural regions, exemplified by her work on nationally threatened south-eastern Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos in buloke woodlands. She is currently exploring the impacts of habitat fragmentation and degradation on health and condition of woodland birds.
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Dr Carl Smith
Chief Investigator
Carl’s research interests lie in the application of Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) to develop decision support tools for natural resource management. He has applied BBN modelling to diverse natural resource management issues including grazing land management, conservation reserve management, species habitat management, weed management, forestry, water management and land degradation risk assessment. He is currently assisting in the development of wildlife habitat management decision support tools for the Brigalow bioregion. These decision support tools are based on species occurrence and habitat suitability models for important bird, reptile and mammal species in the Brigalow bioregion.
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Dr Geoffrey Smith
Partner Investigator
Geoffrey Smith is currently a researcher with the Biodiversity Sciences Unit of the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management where he is involved in work on vertebrate fauna ecology and habitat management. His research at present includes ecological studies of ecosystems of the brigalow belt, restoration of forest red gum ecosystems and the impacts of fire and its management in Queensland’s ecosystems. His refereed publications, spanning approximately 30 years of professional commitment, have been on small mammal ecology, seabird ecology, feeding ecology of raptors, the ecology and management of pest seagulls, vertebrate fauna assemblages of select vegetation communities, the ecology of rare and threatened birds - marbled frogmouth and black-breasted button-quail, the ecology of flying foxes, the ecology of freshwater crayfish, the ecological requirements of hollow-dependent fauna, the efficacy of using artificial hollows as surrogate for dens of hollow dependent fauna, methodologies and technologies for efficient survey and monitoring of vertebrate fauna, impacts of prescribed burning on reptiles and the effects of fragmentation on fauna assemblages.
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Dr Mathew Gentle
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Ms Michiala Bowen
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Michiala’s main research interests include the effects of landscape change and human land use on native animal communities and landscape scale habitat restoration. She recently completed her PhD studies on brigalow bird communities in southern Queensland and she is now involved in the brigalow project as a post-doctoral research fellow. In addition to her PhD studies, Michiala has been involved in a variety of ecological research projects for over 10 years, including koalas, birds, and the pollination biology of Proteaceous plants.
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Dr Leonie Seabrook
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Leonie’s academic background is in physical geography, landscape change and ecological history. She has a personal interest in natural history and biogeography, stemming from her childhood in East Africa. Leonie’s current research, as part of an ARC Linkage project, focuses on the past, present and future distribution and abundance of koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) in southwest Queensland, including modelling the potential impact of climate change.
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Cameron Graham
PhD Student
Cameron completed his Bachelor of Conservation Ecology at Deakin University in 2001. In the period between 2001-2006 he was involved in various projects and positions in Australia and also as a volunteer in Indonesia. However, not being satisfied, in 2006 he returned to Deakin University and completed his Honours on "Urban Habitat Selection of the Powerful Owl" which has subsequently led him on to his current PhD studying the red fox and feral cat in semi-arid agricultural landscapes.
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Alison Howes
PhD Student
Alison Howes is three years into her PhD which is investigating avian biodiversity within the Brigalow Belt in Central Qld. In particular she is interested in the occurrence of the aggressive noisy miner in seemingly intact and continuous woodlands—an unusual phenomenon. She is working in collaboration with Bush Heritage Australia to help implement management plans to restore avian biodiversity on Carnarvon Station Reserve. Alison has an undergraduate degree in Animal Studies and Wildlife Biology and honours in Ecology. Alison developed an interest in the use of Bayesian Belief Network models (BBNs) for environmental decision making while investigating the distribution of the endangered Julia Creek Dunnart as a research assistant for Clive McAlpine prior to undertaking her PhD study. She is passionate about conservation and sustainability and like all ecologists is most happy while conducting field work.
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Sarah Butler
PhD Student
Sarah Butler gained her Bachelor of Science Degree at Griffith University on the Gold Coast in 2006, receiving the Science Medal for academic excellence as well as first class Honours in vegetation community ecology in 2007. Sarah has a keen interest in landscape ecology and conservation biology which has stemmed from her desire to understand and assist in the conservation of degraded landscapes. Her experience as an environmental consultant in the public and private sector (2006-2009), in environmental education for school and university students (2007-2009), and a research assistant (2004 to 2009) has equipped her with a practical understanding of environmental problems at a research, management and social level. She is also continuing to assist with conservation and environmental education programs in Australia and in developing countries such as Indonesia and Ecuador.
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Andrew Ling
Software Developer
Andrew Ling has been involved in developing software tools to assist decision making since 2007. His development interests include Bayesian networks, GIS and decision support systems and publishing them to the network. He is interested in bringing these technologies to wide-spread use in the environmental management industry.
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