Below is a list of potential projects for either Honours or Post-Graduate Students.  This is not an exhaustive list, and students with other research interests are encouraged to contact Lesley to discuss potential projects.

1. Comparison of insect herbivory in low resource vs high resource environments
This project would be designed to test the well known, yet poorly tested, hypothesis that plants in low resource environments (eg growing on infertile soils) put more of their resources into defensive compounds and thus suffer less herbivory. The project would measure insect herbivory at several pairs of field sites (infertile vs fertile) in the Sydney region across multiple plant species. Insects would be collected by canopy fogging and plant characteristics (chemical and physical defenses) also measured.

2. Effect of elevated CO2 on insect herbivory on Acacia spp.
The effects of high CO2 have rarely been tested on species that are rich in nitrogen-based defensive compounds. This project would compare insect herbivory (chewing and/or sucking insects) on Acacias grown under ambient and elevated CO2 in growth cabinets.

3. Effect of elevated CO2 on ferns and bryophytes
There is little known about the effects of elevated CO2 on the growth of ferns and bryophytes. Project would be done in growth cabinets on a variety of species.

4. Spider assemblages along a large-scale latitudinal gradient
This project is a flow-on from work done by PhD student Nigel Andrew who has collected invertebrates along a 1500 km latitudinal gradient from Acacia falcata. The specimens are already collected although there would be the opportunity for further field work if desired. The project would investigate the structure and turnover of spider assemblages, with a view to making predictions as to how they might be affected by future climate change. Specimens of Hymenoptera are also available from the same study.

5.  Herbivory and herbivorous insect assemblages along an altitudinal gradient
This project is also a flow-on from Nigel Andrew's work and would involve collecting herbivorous insects on Acacia falcata within the same latitude at three sites differing in altitude (probably Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Bundara) or the Blue Mountains. Herbivorous insect communities and rates of herbivory would be assessed to help predict the future impacts of shifting climate zones.

6. Alpine ant community composition and ant-seed interactions
Project to be co-supervised by Dr Caroline Pickering, CRC for Sustainable Tourism, Griffith University (subject to funding availability). The project would involve fieldwork in the Snowy Mountains, assessing ant communities and describing seed harvesting and seed dispersal in alpine ant species. This project is suitable as a first semester Honours project only.
 

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