Its incredibly rewarding being an ecologist here. But there are an incredible array of threats facing them. I m running a project on the impact of salinity on remnant vegetation - patches of bush left in the wheat belt. We ve only recently realised that lots of them are at risk from salinity. So we re looking at identifying what areas are most at risk, and what we can do about it.
Animals play a large part in experiments that don t go according to plan.
Once we were planting out seedlings in the wheatbelt, but the next day when we went to see how they were doing, we discovered that a bunch of galahs had breakfasted on them all. But its all been really good fun. I try to balance the science with other things, but its hard to find the time. I like watercolour painting. Its very satisfying, because it uses a different part of your brain.