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The Relationship Between Fire Severity And Eucalypt Health: Implications For Forest Structure And Carbon Balance, Declan Moylan

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

The capacity of resprouting eucalypts to regenerate foliage determines the extent of fire induced structural change and carbon dynamics within Australian dry sclerophyll forests. Resprouting eucalypts are traditionally considered resilient to severe fire, yet records of post-fire mortality are highly varied, reflecting the limited sample size of previous studies and the complexity of factors that govern stem death. Fire regimes are predicted to become increasingly severe throughout Mediterranean ecosystems under anthropogenic climate change, increasing the risk of carbon loss within forest communities. This study sought to further the ecological understanding of the effects of fire severity on eucalypt mortality and …

N2o Emissions From Southeast Australia, S K. Nolan

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is an extremely potent long-lived greenhouse gas that also significantly depletes stratospheric ozone. The global concentration of atmospheric N₂O has been increasing significantly, through sources such as synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers in agricultural soils, which has prompted more research in the area in the hope of mitigating its effects upon future climate change. This work aimed to refine regional estimates of N₂O emissions from southeast Australia over the period 1993 – 2016 and to look for evidence of the major meteorological and human land-use processes that affect them. This was done by …

Examining Changes In Seafloor Communities At The Landscape Scale Around The Capricorn Bunker Group, Southern Gbr, James W. Holland

Science, Medicine & Health - Honours Theses

The aim of this honors project was to map changes in the sea floor communities at the regional scale within the Capricorn Bunker Group between the years of 2001 and 2014. The Capricorn Bunker Group is located at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef near 30⁰ south and 150⁰ east and consists of 16 islands with 22 reefs, with 8 of these islands being vegetated and little in the way of topographic relief (Queensland Government, 2014).

This project accomplished its aim through a three stage method after the second set of benthic community ground coverage data had been …