Build it and they will come!

Rachael Gallagher

Rachael has worked as a plant ecologist and conservation scientist for more than 20 years. Her work focuses on understanding and minimising threats to our unique Australian flora, including from the impacts of land use change, weed invasions and climate change.

In this webinar, she will share her perspectives about restoration practice in Australia and how applying new approaches that focus on plant strategies – not plant names – can help us decide how to restore land.

Rachael will discuss the ideas behind functional ecology. This is the idea that species are more than just their names, they are collections of specific ‘traits’ (e.g., how big are their leaves, seeds and stems?) that, taken together, can tell us more about how they make a living in the environment than can their scientific name. She will discuss how we might use functional trait approaches to help us rebuild ecosystem structure and function, and how functional approaches can help us chose species to plant when seed supply is low.

You can listen to her talking with Radio National about this topic here (starting at 34 minutes): https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/blueprintforliving/the-future-of-weeds-native-seeds-and-restaurant-feeds/103892600 .

She is an Associate Professor at Hawkesbury institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/hie/people/researchers/associate_professor_rachael_gallagher