Ecology Matters

What do ecologists do? What happens when they reach those inevitable bumps and twists in their career path? How do they end up studying sometimes strange and obscure species? And why are partnerships and communication more than just trendy buzzwords when it comes to ecology? Welcome to  Ecology Matters , a podcast from the Ecological Society of Australia, where we explore these questions and more....

"It’s important not to just conserve the skinks because of their ecological significance but also importance to people and culture." Dr Holly Bradley is a Research Fellow at Curtin University. As part of her PhD, Holly worked in partnership with the Badimia people of Western Australia to study the Western Spiny-tailed Skink. As a result of that work, Holly and her Badimia colleagues are...

“It's important to think about how you get the broader public to understand why what you've done is important.” We’re pleased to bring you this special bonus episode of Ecology Matters, all about why communicating ecological science is important. Professor Richard Kingsford is a well-known and well-respected river ecologist who is regularly sought by media to comment on water and wetland-related i...

“Understanding how disturbance changes things within a system to me seemed a fundamental way to actually manage and restore landscapes more effectively.” Dr Neilly is a postdoctoral researcher with the Australian Landscape Trust, based at Calperum Station in South Australia. Her work focuses on how disturbances can alter the structure of vegetation and affect fauna. With colleagues, she is looking...

“The best qualities of leadership are listening to people and building a path forward that is inclusive of everybody else's ideas.” Professor French is Director of the Janet Cosh Herbarium at the University of Wollongong. She has spent almost thirty years investigating the impact of disturbances on ecosystems, with a broad focus on environmental weeds and threatened species. Her expertise has been...

“If you maintain that curiosity and pursue your passions in ecology and conservation, you know, I don't know anyone who hasn't gone on to wonderful things by doing that.” Professor Ritchie leads the Applied Ecology and Conservation Research group in the Centre for Integrative Ecology  and School of Life and Environmental Sciences at Deakin University. He has been a finalist in the Eureka Priz...

“Doing something that is so novel, and something where we could probably start making changes now, is super exciting.” Tropical forests are increasingly at risk of fire, largely as a result of climate change and the impact of agricultural and logging practices. Ebony completed her Honours research looking at the flammability of tropical forest species and has now started a PhD extending this work....

“I’m trying to understand how we can use or manipulate herbivore foraging behaviour just using plant odour rather than having to use fences or shooting or all these quite abrasive control methods." Patt is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney and was awarded the 2021 Jill Landsberg Trust Fund Scholarship . With his supervisors, Patt was among the first to show that mammalian herbivores like...

“Can you imagine you have little to no nitrogen and you put all the nitrogen that you have in these young leaves that are just doomed? That's not very smart. Plants are smarter than that!” Gian is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, investigating the mechanisms behind delayed greening in plants. Delayed greening occurs when plants withhold chlorophyll from leaves until they’...

“Over time I understood that you can't really protect the local environment without involving the local communities, without involving landowners.” Dr Jellinek is a research fellow with the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Water. He has a particular interest in restoration ecology and the role that local communities play in natural resource management. He has worked as an ecologist for WWF, G...

“It was a dream come true to come back and work for the Park so I often feel like I've got the best job in the world.” Mel Wilson is the Natural Resource Manager of the Norfolk Island National Park. In partnership with PhD student Allie Nance, Mel designed an innovative way to manage invasive rodent populations on Norfolk Island. This work has led to improvements in the way tha...

“That's the whole reason why conservation researchers are in this field, right, because we want to make a difference and we want our research to help.” Allie is completing her PhD looking at the nesting success of endemic songbirds on Norfolk Island, which includes understanding invasive rodent populations and designing innovative control methods. Invasive rodents are seen as a key...

“It's an ongoing battle but I do think a lot of these major environmental problems are not really about lack of knowledge.” Professor Kingsford is the Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of New South Wales Sydney. He is a river ecologist and conservation biologist whose work has improved our understanding of how water resource developments impact river and wetl...

"There’s been that big shift where people are starting to appreciate cultural knowledge a lot more than what it would have been appreciated in the past.” - Shandell Cummings Shandell Cummings is a Merningar woman and Indigenous consultant. Dr Alison Lullfitz is a cross-cultural researcher and conservation biologist at the University of Western Australia.  Together they explore and map th...

Ecology Matters is a podcast from the Ecological Society of Australia, a not-for-profit organisation supporting ecologists and ecological science in Australia. The first episode will launch July 2022 and can be found at www.ecolsoc.org.au/publications/audio/ecology-matters . Meet ecologists from around Australia, discover what makes them passionate about Australian ecology, and what their hop...