Jun 212016
 
"Fungal diversity in maritime Antarctic soils"

Dr Paul Dennis is a Lecturer in Soil and Environmental Science in UQ’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, where he also runs a research group focussing on microbial ecology.

Paul graduated from the University of Bangor in North Wales with a BSc hons in Environmental Science in 2002. He then worked at Rothamsted Research, the world’s oldest agricultural research station, for a year on heavy metal contamination of soils. From 2003-2007 he did a PhD in the ecology of plant-microbe interactions at Rothamsted, University College London and London’s Natural History Museum. He then worked with the British Antarctic Survey, between 2007-2010, on the biodiversity of maritime Antarctic soils. During this period he visited Antarctica twice for a total of nine months. In 2010 he moved to Australia to join UQ’s Australian Centre for Ecogenomics where he applied state-of-the-art sequencing technologies to the ecology of microorganisms in a range of environments. In 2013 he started his own lab in the School of Agriculture and Food Science and focusses on quantifying and reduces the impacts of agriculture on the environment and on understanding the impacts of environmental change on Earth’s microbial biodiversity.

For more about Paul, see: http://www.uq.edu.au/agriculture/pauldennis


Also …
Susan Nelles will report on her outing with the The Queensland Naturalists’ Club at Mt Mort.

Jun 102016
 

Situated on the north side of Brisbane, Murrumba Downs John Oxley Reserve is an interesting site with a variety of habitats, ranging from dry Eucalypt forest to pockets of rainforest and mangroves.

How to get there:
The 2013 UBD map ref is 99 F1.
If you heading north over the North Pine River, you take the 1st exit-Doles Rocks Rd.
If you are heading South, you need to take the Kallangur North Lakes exit.
There is a hall at the end of the cul-de-sac on the left.
There is plenty of parking on site.

Starting time:
We will meet at the hall at 9am.

What to bring:
Foray gear, including a hat and drinking water
Your lunch

Note:
There are free BBQ facilities right outside the hall if anyone would like to have a sausage sizzle or similar for lunch.

Children and grand children are welcome as it will be a reasonably short foray and there is a great playground and playing fields.

For more information about the foray, go to our Calendar of Events.