November 2013

Loy Xingwen returned to Brisbane this month, after a long few months in the field. While it was long, he had a great time, and had a lots of success in his data collection. Hao Ran Lai has had a busy month going back a forward between Brisbane and the WA field sites too. It was a bit of an all star cast in out there this month, with Margie Mayfield and John Dwyer also heading out, and of course all joining Claire Wainwright who has been in the field out there for almost 6 months! This month Lachlan Charles headed off for a three month trip to Colombia, where he will be setting up rainforest seed dispersal experiments which will run in parallel to those he has in far north Queensland. He will be sending us photos and updates of his adventure for sure!

October 2013

Congratulations to Tim Staples and Adam Maxwell for submitting their honours theses this month! A year of hard work turned into one small book each. Both gave fantastic presentations of their results too. Lachlan Charles also hit a milestone this month, successfully undertaking his PhD confirmation.

This month Margie Mayfield hosted a rainforest restoration symposium at UQ, in which rainforest researchers from both Australian and overseas participated. A keynote participant, Prof. Karen Holl from the University of California, was hosted by the Mayfield lab for a few days. During her visit, Karen also gave a seminar to the School of Biological Sciences Rainforest Restoration in the Neotropics.

 

September 2013

Congratulations to lab member Claire Wainwright, who won the Women in Technology (WIT) PhD Career Start Award for 2013! Great job Claire!

This month, Loy Xingwen started his field work for his honours project at the Kunjin and Bendering Reserves in Western Australia. He records his study experiences and findings in his personal blog, which is packed with stunning images and information. During the latest WA field trip this month, Margie, Claire, and Loy took a break and went to the Corrigin Wildflower Drive to look for beautiful and rare ground orchids (image below).

Adam Maxwell has also been in the field, braving brown snakes and dingo pups, to conduct his final round of bee surveys at the Thiaki reforestation site in far north Queensland. Lab member Tim Staples had a sad week earlier this month, as the process of collecting his final data involved killing, drying, and weighing all the Trachymene seedlings he has carefully nurtured through life for the last few months. Both Adam and Tim are due to submit their honours work in October! Some late nights ahead… Good luck guys!

Toby Smith also recently returned from the field. He was back in South Australia, conducting the second round of baseline insect surveys at the Monarto reforestation project site. Like the WA field sites, remnant forest sites at Monarto also had a suite of terrestrial orchid species in flower.

Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, from the University of Washington, has just arrived in Brisbane for a month of collaborative work with Margie. Janneke and Margie will head off to the WA York Gum field sites during the month ahead.

August 2013

The lab has had a few visitors this month. Rebecca Parsons from the Hobbs Lab (University of Western Australia) visited us for a week, to work with Michael Sams on rainforest plant trait measurements, and with Toby Smith on the Monarto Zoo bee collection. We also had a visit from Prof. Robert Holt (University of Florida), who is collaborating with Margie Mayfield on the WA novel plant communities project. Also this month, Margie and Hao Ran Lai spent a wet but productive week in WA, where they were conducting fieldwork in York Gum Woodland with Claire Wainwright. Congratulations to Claire, who has been selected as a finalist for the Women in Technology (WIT) PhD Career Start Award for 2013! The winners will be announced in early September.

 

July 2013

Lots of exciting news this month.

First of all, lab member Alex Haller became a father! Alex and his partner Felicity welcomed their son Dante Alexander-Moultrie Haller, brother to Elena, to the world at 1:06 on the afternoon of the 13^th of this month. Congratulations Alex, Felicity, and Elena!

Congratulations also to lab members Hao Ran Lai and Carol Palmer who both graduated with honours this month. Hao Ran, being the Rock Star that he is, was also awarded the University Medal for Ecology, which is a sensational achievement! Well done guys.

This month honours student Loy Xingwen joined the lab, to start a project which will investigate the effects of invasive plant species on pollination and seed predation in York Gum woodlands in south west Western Australia. He will be working closely with Claire Wainwright. Claire has been getting lots done at her field sites in WA this month, but left for a couple of weeks to attend a plant interactions workshop being held near Toulouse, France. Poor Claire…

And finally we have just had Dr Romina Rader visiting the lab from The University of New England. Romina was here to discuss some collaborative work with Margie Mayfield and Yvonne Buckley, which will focus on a compilation of functional trait data sets from a range of different anthropogenic landscapes.

The Mayfield lab is now on Twitter! Follow us @MayfieldLabUQ

 

June 2013

Lab members have been heading off all over the place this month.

Toby Smith left to San Jose, Costa Rica, to attend The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation annual conference. While in Central America he is also visiting tropical bee expert David Roubik (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) in Panama, and will be spending time looking at, and discussing, tropical rainforest bees.

Lachlan Charles and Adam Maxwell headed off to far north Queensland to do some fieldwork at the Thiaki reforestation site. Lachlan is undertaking the latest round of tree growth measurements for the reforestation experiment, as well as conducting rainforest seed surveys and identifying sites for additional seed dispersal experiments. Adam is conducting the third round of bee surveys for his honours project. Claire Wainwright also left this month, to Western Australia, where she will be undertaking fieldwork in her York Gum woodland systems for the rest of the year.

And at the end of May, honours student Carol Palmer submitted her thesis, which investigates predation of fruit spotting bug eggs in Macadamia orchards. Congratulations Carol! We also said goodbye to Lucy Hurrey, our lab manager for the past year and a half, who left the lab at the beginning of the month to take up a great position as Project Officer for the Faculty of Science (UQ). Congratulations Lucy!

May 2013

Margie Mayfield and Toby Smith recently returned from a trip to South Australia where Margie has a collaborative reforestation project with the University of Adelaide and Monarto Zoo. Margie inspected the site, and met with collaborators Briony Horner (Zoos SA) and Corey Bradshaw (UA). She also gave a guest seminar for The Environment Institute (UA).

Toby conducted baseline surveys of bees, flies, and wasps at the Monarto Zoo reforestation site, as well as at forest control plots around the zoo. Apparently he was too busy collecting bees to cuddle any baby lions. It was a very successful trip. Lots of bees were collected, and we stand to have a great baseline data set. While Toby was surveying bees, the Monarto conservation team surveyed ants, spiders, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Both Margie and Toby enjoyed the flatness of landscape, as opposed to the very steep and rugged terrain of the Thiaki reforestation experiment site.

Michael Sams and Hao Ran Lai were also quite busy, visiting numerous sites in Dorrigo in Northern NSW to collect data for the plant community re-assembly project. They had a very productive and efficient trip and returned early.

 

April 2013

John Dwyer recently headed back into the Brigalow with some keen assistants, Billie Williams and Harry Macdermott. Billie is completing the final semester of her undergraduate degree, and Harry graduated at the end of last year. They were assisting John in re-measuring a Brigalow thinning trial set up during his PhD. They may look harmless, but <i>Acacia harpophylla</i> can be quite nasty – with many war wounds received during the trip. Regardless, both Billie and Harry were un-deterred and are more than ready to head back out very soon.

 

March 2013

Toby Smith recently returned from a trip to far north Queensland where he was helping Adam Maxwell (one of our new Honours students) with his first field trip for his Honours project. At the same time, Lachlan Charles (our new PhD student) was happy to revisit his Honours field sites. Despite a particularly dry ‘wet’ season, the trip has been a wet one, but it didn’t slow them down too much and they powered through. Lachlan and Adam will return Valentine’s Day, a welcome but muddy present for their respective partners.

 

January 2013

To start the year on a high note, John Dwyer was appointed to a joint UQ/CSIRO position of Lecturer in Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation. We know that he’ll be a great success in this exciting new role. We’re particularly happy that John will continue to collaborate with Margie on future projects and is already making big plans. Dr. Joe Bennett, a Research Fellow with the Spatial Ecology Lab, and Michael Sams recently enjoyed a day in Noosa National Park with John discussing research directions.

Happy New Year!