Dr Michelle Leishman

Associate Professor

Telephone: +61 (02) 9850 9180
Facsimile: +61 (02) 9850 8245

Email. michelle.leishman[at]mq.edu.au

Building E8A 170

Department of Biological Sciences

Faculty of Science

Macquarie University

North Ryde, NSW, Australia, 2109

Research

My main areas of research are plant functional traits and ecological strategies of plants. My current research focuses on understanding the success of invasive plants, predicting the success of invasive plants with climate change and developing sustainable vegetation restoration methods. There are a number of active research programs in the lab, including:

1. - Comparison of traits of exotic invasive species in their original and novel ranges
2. - Responses of invasive plants to elevated CO2
3. - Modelling exotic species distribution with climate change
4. - The role of soil biota in plant invasions
5. - Development of restoration guidelines for woodland and riparian vegetation
6. - Relating plant volatile organic compound emissions to functional traits
1. - Research collaborators on some of these projects include Professor Dave Richardson, Dr Paul Downey, Dr John Klironomos, Associate Professor Angela Moles, Professor Lesley Hughes and Dr Brad Murray.

 

I am involved in several working groups of the Australia-New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function, including WG1 Leaves: size, shape, economics, palaeobiology and evolutionary radiations, WG7 Towards consistent site descriptions for worldwide data synthesis and WG54 Future species distributions.

I am also on the editorial board of Journal of Ecology and on the NSW Scientific Committee.

Students

I am currently supervising a number of Honours/Masters and PhD students.  Follow the links from the homepage to learn more.

Teaching

I am responsible for teaching BIOL347 Plant Diversity and Conservation, BIOL867 Plant Diversity and Conservation and contribute to BIOL210 Plant Structure & Function. I also convene the Honours Program for the Department of Biological Sciences.

Publications

Click here for a list of my publications.