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AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH CENTRE FOR URBAN ECOLOGY
What does ARCUE do?
The scope of ARCUE's overall activities encompasses basic and applied research, undergraduate, honours and postgraduate training, long-term ecological studies, community education and training programs, policy and management advice to all levels of government and consultancy services. ARCUE is concentrating its initial work efforts on the ecology of urban areas throughout Australia.ARCUE takes a broad view of the term urban. The cities and surrounding areas of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Brisbane and Hobart are its principal areas of concern. As these cities expand, the corridors of new developments will also be included in our work. Currently we are concentrating our efforts on the Greater Melbourne area.
The scope of ARCUE's activities
Research
ARCUE is addressing both basic and applied ecological issues in urban and suburban landscapes within a diversity of sub-disciplines. A number of potential research topics we are considering are:
The response of plants and animals to urban environments;
The effects of landscape fragmentation on ecosystems; and
The role of anthropogenic (human caused) disturbance frequencies.
More information on ARCUE's research
Conservation and Restoration
ARCUE believes that successful conservation and restoration of urban natural areas involves maintaining natural ecosystem processes while minimising human impacts. Three of the most significant issues associated with human impacts on urban natural areas are the alteration of natural disturbance regimes, the naturalisation of non-indigenous species and the preservation of native species.
ARCUE is intending to:
Explore the use of a number of different restoration techniques (such as fire), designed to recreate natural disturbance regimes; Explore the complex interactions between non-native plants and animals and the Australian environment; Develop conservation and restoration programs that investigate ecologically sound management techniques encouraging the survival of native species and control of invasions by non-indigenous species.
Education
Educating people about the biological, ecological and social benefits of maintaining viable natural environments in urban areas is an important component of ARCUE's mission. Developing knowledge about the structure and function of urban natural areas is our first step in the education process. Our second step will be to transfer our results into forms that can be readily used by the general public, students of all ages, teachers, government officials and land managers.
More
information on studying with ARCUE