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ARCUE Staff and Students
Mark McDonnell - Director
Rodney van der Ree - Senior Ecologist
Amy Hahs - GIS Ecologist
Zoë Smith - Post-Doctoral Fellow
Andrew Hamer - Post-Doctoral Fellow
Marnie Ireland - Business Development Manager
Julia Stammers - Administrative/Technical Officer
Kelly Holland - Research Assistant
Chris Stewart - PhD Student
Mark Newbound - PhD Student
Briony Norton - PhD Student
Phoebe Smith - Honours Student
Natasha Kreitals - Honours Student
ARCUE Honorary Associates
Nick Williams
Mick McCarthy
Kirsten Parris
B.A., M.S., Ph.D.
Dr McDonnell's role is that of ARCUE's Director. He also serves as a Divisional Director at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. Mark's interests range widely and include the processes driving vegetation change, landscape ecology, the structure and function of ecological systems in urban and suburban environments and the conservation and restoration of urban and suburban natural areas. He is also an associate editor of Urban Ecosystems and is on the Editorial Board of the new Ecological Society of Australia journal entitled Ecological Management and Restoration. Other professional activities include serving as treasurer of the International Association for Landscape Ecology and on advisory panels for the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Academy of Science and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. He has published over 60 scientific papers, reviews, reports and articles and has presented over 100 scientific papers in the United States and around the world.
B. App. Sci (Environmental Management), B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D
Dr Rodney van der Ree is ARCUE's Senior Ecologist. He obtained his PhD in 2000 from Deakin University where he studied the impacts of habitat fragmentation on arboreal marsupials in north-eastern Victoria. He used the principles of landscape ecology to investigate the response of fauna to a landscape where the habitat was arranged as a network of linear strips along roads and streams. Rodney now brings this knowledge and skill to ARCUE to investigate the response of mammals to urbanisation. Rodney will be investigating the distribution and abundance of mammals within the greater Melbourne area, with a focus on the rate of species decline, their habitat requirements and survival prospects.
B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D.
Dr Amy Hahs is ARCUE's GIS Ecologist. Her major research interests are examining and quantifying the spatial patterns of cities and towns and investigating how these patterns influence patterns of biodiversity. Her recent Ph.D. researched measures of urbanisation and the ecology of remnant woodlands along an urban-rural gradient. Amy has extensive knowledge in the field of landscape ecology and has been the Newsletter Editor for the International Association of Landscape Ecologists Australasian Chapter for five years. She has a broad base of research skills including: the interpretation of remotely sensed imagery, quantitative spatial statistics, plant ecology, and dendrochronology. Amy is the co-author of several publications, including A Reference Guide to the Ecology and Natural Resources of the Melbourne Region and 'Selecting independent measures to quantify Melbourne's urban-rural gradient' in Landscape and Urban Planning (for a PDF copy, email: hahsa@unimelb.edu.au).
B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D.
Dr Zoë Smith Smith is a Postdoctoral Ecologist at ARCUE, with research interests in landscape genetics in urban habitat fragments, extinction modelling, mycorrhizal ecology and translocation of rare and threatened species. Zoë obtained her Ph.D. in resource management at the University of Melbourne, Australia in July 2006. Her research focussed on the taxonomic status, genetic diversity, fungal ecology and systematic relationships, and reintroduction of the threatened terrestrial orchid Diuris fragrantissima. During her studies she was employed as an orchid researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, and also held a short internship at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK, where she conducted research on species extinction modelling. Zoë was also employed as an environmental consultant prior to undertaking her current post doctoral position. She is a member of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation, Australian Systematic Botany Society, Orchid Specialist Group Education Committee and is the first chair and co-founder of the Orchid Specialist Group Early Career Committee.
B.Sc. (Hons), MEnvStudies, Ph.D.
Dr Andrew Hamer is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at ARCUE. He has published extensively on frog ecology, including aspects of habitat use, life history and demography, and the impacts of invasive fish and agrochemicals on frog populations. His PhD research focussed on the ecology of the endangered Green and Golden Bell Frog Litoria aurea in New South Wales. This research contributed to wetland restoration projects and the management of extant populations. Andrew is currently modelling the determinants of patterns and dynamics in wetland usage by bell frogs.
Andrew has 12 years experience as an environmental consultant and has completed numerous flora and fauna assessments and monitoring projects in New South Wales and Victoria. More recently, he applied information-theoretic methods to improve the ability of a long-term monitoring program to assess the status of a population of the Green and Golden Bell Frog in an urban setting at Sydney Olympic Park. He has also published the results of a monitoring study on the Growling Grass Frog Litoria raniformis in an urban-fringe environment in south-east Melbourne.
Andrew's current research interests include the role of local and landscape factors in determining the distribution of frogs in urban areas. He believes that our understanding of the impacts of urbanisation on frog communities can be improved through studies at multiple spatial scales which integrate aspects of the biotic and abiotic environment.
B.Eng. (Environmental) (Hons), MBA
Marnie Ireland joined ARCUE as Manager, Environmental Business Development on a part time basis in April 2008. Her formal qualifications include a B.Eng (Environmental) with honours from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and an MBA from Deakin University. Marnie brings significant experience in strategic planning, industry and business development, contract administration and stakeholder engagement together with a knowledge of ecological sciences developed through various roles within the water industry.
More recently Marnie has developed her knowledge of plant sciences in relation to bush produce and cultural Intellectual Property associated with Indigenous species.
B.A. (Hons), MSc.
Julia Stammers is ARCUE's Administrative/Technical Officer. She carries out a range of tasks to support ARCUE's scientific research and is responsible for the administrative duties of the centre. She also maintains this website and compiles the Newsletter Urban Spotlight. Julia joined ARCUE after moving from England and brings with her administrative/ research assistance skills from a varied background including publishing and the medical and environmental fields.
B.Sc. (Hons)
Kelly Holland is a Research Assistant at ARCUE. She completed Honours in 2004, investigating the potential impact of mollusc herbivory on native grassland vegetation. She has since been involved in a range of research projects and literature reviews on topics including invasive species, translocation of rare plants, phenology of planted trees, road ecology, and general biodiversity management in urban areas. She also assists with the maintenance and administration of this website.
B.Sc. (Hons)
Chris Stewart is investigating the effects of roads on wildlife populations utilising population modeling for his Ph.D. He completed a Bachelor of Science at Monash University in July 2005, majoring in biology and mathematics, and completed an honours year in mathematics. His research interests include mathematical ecology (in particular population modelling), ecology and conservation biology.
B.Sc. (Hons)
For Mark's Ph.D, he is studying ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with native Eucalyptus species along an urban-rural gradient.
B.Sc. (Hons)
The title of Briony's PhD research is 'The Sanitisation of Urban Ecological Systems: a study of the distribution and management of leaf litter in eucalypt woodlands.'
For Phoebe's Honours project she is researching the topic 'Stormwater retention: ecology and physio-chemcial properties'.
Natasha's Honours project investigates 'Resource utilisation by the spectacled flying-fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) between savannah and rainforest habitats using stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes, in Atherton, Australia'.
B.Sc. (Hons), B.A., Ph.D.
Dr Nick Williams is a plant ecologist with particular interest in how anthropogenic disturbances determine plant community composition. He is a Lecturer in Urban Horticulture and Plant Ecology at the University of Melbourne's Burnley Campus (Department of Resource Management and Geography, Melbourne School of Land and Environment). Nick worked at ARCUE from 1998 undertaking a variety of research and consultancy projects and has extensive knowledge of the theoretical and practical aspects of plant ecology and a comprehensive understanding of the ecology of many Victorian vegetation communities. He obtained a PhD from the University of Melbourne during which he investigated the influence of the surrounding landscape on the ecology of fragmented native grasslands in western Victoria. As well as comparing the patterns and drivers of land-use change in urban and rural landscapes he examined the local extinction of plant species and the extent of edge effects in grassland remnants. Nick has also conducted research on the ecology of grey-headed flying-foxes in Melbourne, the local extinction of plants in urban heathlands, the effects of logging on community composition, urban vegetation restoration and the social factors that influences the community's perception of biodiversity. He enjoys applying scientific knowledge to biodiversity management issues.
B.For.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D.
Dr Mick McCarthy is a Principal Research Fellow in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne, working with Applied Environmental Decision Analysis, a research hub of the Commonwealth Environment Research Facility. His research focuses on how to make environmental management decisions in the face of uncertainty. Mick previously worked as a Senior Ecologist at ARCUE and his research here could be broadly described as theoretical applied ecology, with a range of interests including population ecology of plants and animals, fire ecology, forest ecology and conservation biology. He primarily used quantitative and theoretical methods to help contribute to the management of ecological systems. He obtained his PhD from the University of Melbourne, and has conducted post-doctoral research at The Australian National University, The University of Adelaide and the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has published over 50 scientific papers, reviews and articles and has presented numerous scientific papers in the United States and Australia.
Kirsten currently is working as a Research Fellow in the School of Botany, University of Melbourne as part of the Commonwealth Environment Research Facility, in the Applied Environmental Decision Analysis research centre. Her research interests include urban ecology, amphibian ecology, bioacoustics and animal communication. While a post-doc at ARCUE, Kirsten had three main projects: 1) impacts of urbanisation on pond-breeding frogs in Melbourne; 2) urban climate change and the grey-headed flying-fox; and 3) effects of traffic noise on acoustic communication in birds and frogs.