Currently available projects include studies of water-use strategies and survival in a variety of dry rainforest trees. Already a number of promising genotypes have been located which have survived many years in the field unattended after small plot experiments have been abandoned. The identity of these plants, and their ecology and potential, will be evaluated over the coming years . The ability of the amendments to increase the productivity of horticultural crops, sugar cane and tropical timber plantations will be assessed. This group comprises students and staff whose research focusses on the dynamics of vegetation in natural communities ranging from tropical rainforests to wetlands, and from minesite revegetation to plantations of rainforest cabinet timber trees.
Research projects cover aspects of nutrient cycling, productivity, fire and weed ecology.
The group has laboratory facilities equipped for the analysis of nutrients in plant and soil samples. Bob Congdon continues his study of long-term changes in water quality of wetlands in the Burdekin River Irrigation Area. Several sites have been monitored fortnightly for over ten years. The project has been funded by Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Australian Water Research Advisory Committee, and the Land and Water Resources Research Development Corporation. Other research is examining the management of Khaya senegalensis in plantations of the seasonal wet-dry tropics.