Dr Anna Richards
Department of
Biological Sciences (room E8C 269)
Macquarie
University, Sydney, NSW Australia 2109
Tel: +61 2 9850
4227
Fax: +61 2 9850
8228
Email:
can be obtained here
PhD: University
of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia), 2007
Post Doc:
Macquarie University 2007-2008
Research Interests
Broadly,
my research interests include plant ecophysiology and plant-soil
interactions, the application of these disciplines to understanding
nutrient (C, N, P)
cycling in ecosystems, and
how these cycles are influenced by different vegetation communities and
land use change (particularly reforestation activities). For my PhD
(advisors: Susanne
Schmidt
and Ram
Dalal)
I looked at changes in soil carbon pools under different land uses
(rainforest, pasture and hoop pine plantations) in SE Queensland. I
also studied plant interactions for nutrients and light in native mixed
species rainforest tree plantations using different modelling and
ecophysiology techniques.
I am
currently completing a one-year post-doc in the Comparative Ecology
group at Macquarie University. As part of this project I am working with Ian
Wright
to determine the influence that different plant nutrient uptake
strategies (e.g. cluster roots, mycorrhizal associations, uptake of
mineral or organic N) have on leaf functional traits (e.g. specific
leaf area, N content, photosynthetic rates).
A second strand
of this
project (in collaboration with Ian Wright and Amy
Zanne) involves linking the sapwood
capacitance of
different plant species to other traits related to water uptake and
hydraulic architecture, including rooting depth, wood density,
hydraulic
conductance and xylem anatomy.
Other interests
- How soil P availability is
influenced by, and influences, our interpretations of soil age and
vegetation communities (collaborating with Mark
Westoby
using the CENTURY
Soil Organic Matter Model)
- Student-centred
approaches for teaching and learning (I recently completed a graduate
certificate in higher education to obtain more formal teaching
qualifications).
Publications
Richards A.E. (2007)
Carbon Sequestration in Native Rainforest Tree Plantations. PhD Thesis,
University of Queensland, Australia. abstract
Richards
A.E.,
Dalal, R., and Schmidt S. (2007) Soil Carbon Turnover in Native
Subtropical Tree Plantations. Soil Biology
and Biochemistry 39: 2078-2090. link
Richards
A.E.,
Dalal, R., and Schmidt S. (2007) Soil carbon sequestration and
stabilization under subtropical native tree plantations differs from
original rainforest. Linking
Local Management to Global Challenges, Proceedings of the
International Symposium on Forest Soils and Ecosystem Health, August
19-23, Noosa, Australia.
Richards A.E.,
Shapcott A., Playford J., Morrison B., Critchley
C., and
Schmidt S. (2003) Physiological profiles of restricted endemic plants
and their
widespread congeners in the North Queensland Wet Tropics, Australia.
Biological
Conservation 111:41-52. link
Richards A.E., and
Schmidt S. (2001) Rarity in plants. Situating the Environment, 2001,
Conference
Proceedings, The University
of Queensland,
Australia
Richards
A. E., Dalal,
R., and Schmidt S. (in revision) The effect of soil aggregation, iron
and aluminium oxide content on carbon storage in a ferralsol under
subtropical plantations, rainforest and pasture. Geoderma.
Shapcott A., Richards
A.E., and Playford J. (in
review) A comparison of the population demography and genetic diversity
between
three endangered rainforest species restricted to Cape Tribulation,
Australia,
and three more widespread congeneric species. Plant Species
Biology.
Richards A.E., and
Schmidt S. (in Prep) Complementary resource use in mixed-species
rainforest tree plantations. Functional
Plant Biology.
CV (pdf file)