AMRF Team

Professor Adrienne Nicotra moved to Australia following a PhD researching plant reproductive ecology in the dark wet understory of the Costa Rican rain forest. She has been researching plant life in a sunny climate ever since.

Research interests: Her interests include the adaptive significance of phenotypic plasticity, the evolution of leaf shape, comparative ecology, plant reproductive ecology and plant life in alpine environments.

Professor Mark Hovenden completed his PhD at University of Tasmania investigating terrestrial ecology of lichens of the Windmill Islands, near Casey Station. He studied the effects of low temperature on eucalypts at the Terrestrial Hardwood Forestry CRC before returning to the School of Plant Science as an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow working on the impacts of climate on leaf form and growth of the southern beech, Nothofagus cunninghamii. He is currently a professor in the Discipline of Biological Sciences at University of Tasmania.

Research interests: Mark is a plant ecologist with a particular interest in linking plant function with the function of the ecosystem. He seeks a greater understanding of the way that plants interact with each other and the environment to control ecosystem functioning. He uses manipulative field experiments to studying the responses of individual plants right up to studying how the whole ecosystem responds.

Dr Susanna Venn is a Senior Lecturer and ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow at the Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University. Susanna is a botanist and plant ecologist with a keen interest in the processes that shape vegetation patterns in alpine areas.

Research interests: Susanna is focused on how snow influences plant community patterns, processes and community (re)assembly. Snow is one of the most influential environmental factors in alpine areas. Snowpack depth, snow accumulation patterns, snow duration and the timing of snowmelt all interact to affect many levels of plant community organisation and functioning.

Frazer Muir completed a Masters of Science at the University of Canterbury (NZ) and then went on to work at James Cook University investigating the geological evolution of the Great Barrier Reef, during that time he worked with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA), National Geographic and the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Australia). He went on to become the principle scientist then District and Regional Manager for the Marine Parks Branch of Queensland NPWS in Cairns. Frazer is presently the Branch Programs Manager for the Southern Ranges Branch, NSW NPWS. The teams he manages includes; the Fire, Conservation, Threatened species, Pest Animal & Weed, Hawkweed and Visitor Experience programs with a focus on Kosciuszko NP.

Interests & aims: Day to day management and strategic planning of fire, pest control and visitor experience programs and to provide strategic support and advice on priority regional service delivery plans, budgets, and specific projects.