Study level

  • Master of Philosophy
  • Honours
  • Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

School of Biology and Environmental Science

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy

Supervisors

Dr Elaine Mitchell
Position
Research Associate
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science
Professor David Rowlings
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science

External supervisors

  • Trevor Hall

Overview

Soils are now in the ‘front line’ of global environmental change. Soils are the largest global pool of actively cycling organic C and N. Maintaining and increasing soil organic matter (SOM) is a prominent strategy for mitigating atmospheric CO2 and adapting agriculture to climate change.

At the same time the global biodiversity crisis has led to increased scrutiny on supply chains to scrutinise farms ecological footprint. Planting or retaining trees in the landscape has the opportunity to achieve both outcomes, however the tradeoffs between tree cover, pasture production, soil carbon and biodiversity values are not clear.

Research activities

This project will travel to a number of field sites across SE-Qld, identify potential experimental areas, collect soil carbon samples and establish pasture production monitoring stations.

Outcomes

  • assessment of the optimal tree balances for soil carbon, production and biodiversity
  • skills in measuring and account for soil carbon, pasture biomass production and diversity
  • data analytics and interpretation.

Skills and experience

Be prepared for field work.

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.