Ian Cole

Overcoming barriers to ecological restoration of grassy box-gum woodland communities

The grassy box-gum woodlands have been transformed by 200 years of European settlement during which they were cleared and converted to other land use. Little remains intact and their restoration is essential. While mature trees remain over large areas of the landscape, its original diverse understorey that was its defining feature is now usually comprised of few hardy native species in a sea of exotic annual weeds. Ian’s project will investigate the ability of spring grazing, burning and carbon additions to break the biological feedback cycles that promote these weeds, as well as the potential of native grasses to reduce long-term weediness.

Ian’s research falls into the CRC’s Program 1 research area and is related to the EverGraze project.

Objective:

Develop practical methods to help landholders improve the quality of degraded understorey in endangered box-gum woodland communities by:

Investigating the ability of spring grazing, burning and carbon additions to break nitrate feedback cycles and allow four different native grass species to establish

Investigating the potential of four different native grass species to maintain low soil nitrate in autumn and prevent increases in annual exotic weed abundance in box-gum woodlands.

For more information, email Ian.