Annalie has just started her PhD studying how variation in the fire regime (e.g. time since fire and fire severity) affects biodiversity in the Otway Ranges. The information collected from these initial excursions will help build on the long-term monitoring data previously collected by the Fire Ecology and Biodiversity Group. Hopefully this data will allow us to separate the effect of habitat type from the effects of fire diversity.
Ellen also recently began her Masters project, using the same dataset as Annalie to examine how forest flammability and vegetation structure relate to the occurrence of ground-dwelling mammals. She will combine the fauna data gathered from the motion-sensitive cameras with measurements of habitat structure, fuel hazard and new flammability modelling.
Many thanks to the amazing volunteers we’ve had so far. We still have a couple of field trips coming up so please contact Annalie if you’re interested in joining us for one of them!