ANBG Friends Plant Science Group - Technical Talk

Recent work on the ecology of seed dispersal and droughts

Speaker:  Dr Robert Godfree, CSIRO scientist with the Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research.

In this talk Bob will discuss results from two CSIRO projects investigating the ecological responses of Australian plant species to drought.  In the first project he investigated the role that seed awns play in promoting the surface dispersal and burial of Australian grasses, covering straight, geniculate, bigeniculate and multi-awned forms. The results indicate that awns plays a key role in propagule dispersal and burial, with bigeniculate seeds tending to move further across the soil surface and bury more deeply than other forms. Experiments conducted in a simulated grassland environment also suggest that awn types vary in fitness across different microsites. 

In the second part of the talk Bob will discuss the results of an historiographic project aimed at reconstructing the impacts of the Federation Drought (1895-1903) on the Australian biota at the continental scale.  The results show that the Federation Drought caused mass mortality of native plants and animals and ecosystem collapse across at least 36% of the continent, and ranks as perhaps the most geographically extensive and impactful drought event observed in the colonial to modern era.

Venue: ANBG Theatrette