Firstly, a huge congratulations to Isis Arend da Silva who has handed up her PhD thesis this month!! Well done, Isis!!

Also, the new year of 2024 welcomes three new students into our lab group:

Wei Lin – Wei is a PhD student in the final year of his PhD, visiting from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. Wei’s research investigates role of environmental heterogeneity in biodiversity maintenance. His PhD focuses on species coexistence and biodiversity-ecosystem functioning under rainfall fluctuation scenarios.

Marina Alfano – Marina is starting her Masters looking at how plant identity and diversity impact on the structure of horizontal networks. Marina will be studying this in a field experiment that manipulates the density and diversity of native wildflowers in York gum woodlands of Western Australia. This research will help contribute towards developing useful metrics for horizontal networks which are currently lacking.

Ben Stone – Ben is an honours student who is working on understanding how arthropod diversity is affected by restoration in threatened Grey Box Grassy Woodland ecological communities in northern Victoria. This research will particularly focus on how native pollinator diversity and abundance varies with land use.