My main areas of research are plant functional traits and ecological strategies of plants. My current research focuses on understanding the success of invasive plants under a range of different disturbance types and developing sustainable vegetation restoration methods. There are a number of active research programs in the lab, including:

• Comparison of leaf trait relationships of native and exotic species across a range of habitat and disturbance types
• Comparison of leaf trait relationships of exotic invasive species in their original and new ranges
• Comparison of reproductive output of native and exotic plants
• Comparison of traits of native and exotic species in a range of habitats including temperate woodlands, semi-arid woodlands and riparian zones
• Responses of invasive plants to global climate change
• Potential exotic species distribution with predicted climate change
• Responses of exotic plants to different disturbance types
• Development of restoration guidelines for woodland and riparian vegetation
• Relating plant volatile organic compound emissions to functional traits
  

Research collaborators on some of these projects include Professor Dave Richardson, Dr John Klironomos, Dr Angela Moles, Dr Lesley Hughes and Dr Brad Murray.

I am involved in several working groups of the Australia-New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function, including WG1 Leaves: size, shape, economics, palaeobiology and evolutionary radiations, WG7 Towards consistent site descriptions for worldwide data synthesis  and WG22 Urbanisation and plant functional traits.

I participate as a Chief Investigator on an ARC Linkage-funded project on rehabilitation of the Hunter River, NSW. This project is a multi-disciplinary research effort, including studies of terrestrial ecology, aquatic invertebrates, fish biology, carbon and nutrient fluxes, geomorphology and catchment evolution. The project aims to provide a sound scientific framework for river rehabilitation. See the Upper Hunter River Rehabilitation Initiative website for more information.

I am also on the editorial board of Austral Ecology.

I am currently supervising a number of Honours/Masters and PhD students.  Follow the links from the homepage to learn more.

I am responsible for teaching BIOL347 Australian and World Vegetation (available from 2006) and contribute to BIOL210 Plant Structure & Function.