Professor Adrienne Nicotra and Dr Veronica Briceno Rodriguez ‘‘Living on the Edge: How do Plants of Threatened Ecological Communities Cope with Extreme Temperature?’

Adrienne and Veronica, from the Research School of Biology, ANU, will talk on a research partnership between the ANU, ANBG and Friends, the University of Technology Sydney, the Sydney Botanical Gardens, and Save the Species Program, which seeks to provide critical data on the physiological tolerances of Australian native species from alpine, desert and threatened ecological communities.

Abstract   Of all the climatic factors determining species distributions, temperature is arguably the most important. It is extremes – rather than averages – that drive species evolution. So it is concerning that although extreme temperature events are increasing in frequency and intensity little is known about the breadth of thermal tolerance of plants, or how that varies among plants from benign and extreme environments. This information is crucial to understand species distribution and survival under future climate regimes.

Adrienne and Veronica, from the Research School of Biology, ANU, will talk on a research partnership between the ANU, ANBG and Friends, the University of Technology Sydney, the Sydney Botanical Gardens, and Save the Species Program, which seeks to provide critical data on the physiological tolerances of Australian native species from alpine, desert and threatened ecological communities. This talk will present an overview of a new research partnership between ANU, ANBG and Friends, as well as University of Technology Sydney, Sydney Botanical Gardens and the NSW DPIE Save our Species program, as well as some sneak peaks at our early results. Our project seeks to provide critical data on the physiological tolerances of Australian native species from alpine, desert and more benign threatened ecological communities. Ultimately, the work will not only provide predictive power for developing models but also specific insight for a broad range of species that will be directly applicable to decisions about on-ground management programs and potentially translocation projects.

Biographies

Prof Adrienne Nicotra is a plant evolutionary ecologist with interest in the capacity of plants to respond to environment and environmental change – what we call phenotypic plasticity. Her work focusses on native species from a wide range of environments, though she is particularly fond of mountain flora.  Adrienne joined ANU as a postdoctoral fellow in 1998 and has been there ever since, now as a Professor in the Division of Ecology and Evolution in the Research School of Biology. In addition to her research work, Adrienne teaches, supervises honours and postgraduate students and is the director of the Australian Mountain Research Facility.

Verónica Briceño Rodríguez is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Nicotra Lab at the Australian National University. She is interested on the ecophysiology of alpine plants, particularly on how plants can deal with freezing. She has done work in the Andes and in the Temperate Rainforest of Chile and in the mountains in Australia. She is currently working on how plants from extreme environments, such as alpine and desert species, cope with extreme temperatures.

This talk will be held in the ANBG Theatrette.

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