School of Plant Biology

Please contact me if you are interested in a PhD, Masters or Honours project combining biology and mathematical/computational modelling.

I am keen to work with people with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics or computer science who have not necessarily studied biological science but are interested in looking at biological problems. I am also very keen to hear from people with biology, ecology and agriculture backgrounds who are interested in learning modelling skills. Projects can be completely focused on modelling or can combine experimental work with some modelling.

Honours and PhD projects are possible in any of the topics mentioned in the 'research summary' section above. I am also very interested in looking at modelling projects related to other areas of biology, agriculture or ecology if you already have a topic in mind, or in co-supervising projects where you would like to add a modelling component to a biological study. Co-supervision with experts in relevant fields from UWA, CSIRO, the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food, or other organisations is available.

Potential projects

Evolution of Herbicide Resistance

(with Steve Powles and WAHRI, and Art Diggle)
How do management strategies and genetics affect the evolution of herbicide resistance in weeds in agricultural systems? Can existing models be used to find optimal strategies to avoid different kinds of herbicide resistance, particularly for new herbicides and new technologies?

Plant Spatial Interactions

(with Michael Robertson and Erik Veneklaas)
How does the spatial arrangement of plants affect the way they interact? Examples of systems where plant spatial interactions may be important include weeds competing with crops, perennials getting established or surviving drought in a pasture, or trees of different ages in a forest as rainfall slowly decreases with long-term climate change. Can modelling techniques be used to understand these spatial interactions, and to help design useful management strategies?

Modelling Shrubs in APSIM

(with Michael Robertson)
APSIM is a well established platform for modelling the growth of annual crops. However, perennial shrubs such as saltbush and tagasaste are likely to be of increasing importance in future farm industries. How can APSIM be extended to simulate the growth of perennial shrubs? What are the most important parameters that need to be obtained? What can this kind of model tell us about the economic and environmental usefulness of perennial shrubs in the farming system?

Weed Seed Bank Population Dynamics

(with various collaborators)
Can existing models of weed seed bank population dynamics be refined and used to determine optimal strategies for the long-term management of weed populations in agricultural systems? How are these optimal strategies affected by the seed biology of different species? To what extent do they depend on season type and seasonal variability? How will they be influenced by the development of new technologies, new crop and pasture species, climate change and new farming systems?

Modelling Seed Biology

(with various collaborators)
Predicting seed dormancy and germination under diferent environmental conditions and management scenarios is an important part of predicting and managing weed populations. What is the best way to model and predict seed dormancy and germination for different species? How are these factors influenced by different management strategies and environmental startegies? How can the seeds' dormancy and germination be manipulated for different ends?

Structural Models of Weeds, Crops and Pastures

(with various collaborators) 
How do plant structures emerge over time in relationship with physiology and environment? Can we create structural models of important plants that incorporate these factors? Can we use these models to answer questions about issues such as competition between crops and weeds, or the establishment of pasture species? How do they compare with simpler models? Can they be linked to crop growth models to improve the meaningfulness of the output of these models?

Optimal Rooting Strategies

(with Erik Veneklaas)
What are the optimal strategies for plant rooting systems in different situations, and how close do real plant root systems come to these theoretical optimums? Some possible example systems include plant root systems in arid environments with occasional heavy rainfall events, and plant root systems for extracting nutrients from low nutrient soils.

Spread of Biological Organisms

Can we predict the spread of biological organisms such as weeds, crop pests and crop diseases? Can models of spread be used to determine optimal strategies for detecting, containing, controlling and eradicating unwanted biological organisms (or for encouraging the spread of desirable organisms?) What factors are most important in simulating organism dispersal? (NOTE: A PhD project in this area with a full or top-up scholarship from the National Plant Biosecurity CRC is currently being advertised.)

Downloads

Weed Seed Wizard

The latest version of the Weed Seed Wizard installer will be here soon! In the meantime, you can download it from the Weed CRC project website. Please email me for further information.

Functional Structural Models

Animations of functional-structural models of:

• a shaded frangipani tree
• an unshaded frangipani tree
• a textured and rendered birch tree
• an amaranth plant
• hungry plant monsters using different strategies to compete for limited resources