The University of Melbourne’s Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science in partnership with the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) have established a new $10M research program that will examine the effects of climate, management, and disturbances on forest ecosystem processes at landscape scales.

We seek expressions of interest from prospective PhD students in the following research areas:

1. Forest Biodiversity: quantify relationships between future fire regimes and risks to forest biodiversity (particularly fauna), structure and function.

2. Forest Water: help identify key threats to future water security from forested catchments.

3. Forest Carbon: contribute to mechanistic understanding of carbon stocks and fluxes in forested landscapes, including how carbon cycling varies with forest type, disturbance, and climate.

4. Forest Vulnerability:improve understanding of how forest species and ecosystems respond to disturbance, management and climate.



5. Forest Socio-Economic: impact of wildfires on community safety

All PhD projects will involve field-based, experimental and modelling approaches, and will benefit from the team-based approach and considerable infrastructure underpinning the broader program. Students will receive a laptop computer, access to research assistance, and support for conference and training opportunities.

Project partners

University of Melbourne, Department of Sustainability and Environment

Location

Creswick and/or Melbourne, Victoria