Vegetation Function Network supported by Australian Research Council and Landcare Research NZ
31. Human-influenced countrysides and plant traits

Organised by Margaret Mayfield, University of Queensland

First meeting was held 11-15 February '08 at University of Queensland, Brisbane

Second meeting held 25-30 November '08 at Maquarie University

Third meeting to be held 18-22 September '09 at University of Queensland, Brisbane

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE
Margaret Mayfield, University of Queensland, landscape ecology, pollination and dispersal biology
Cibele Queiroz, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal, landscape ecology, ecosystem services
Jessie Wells, University of Queensland, spatial models of dispersal and regeneration
Stephen Bonser, University of New South Wales, Australia, evolution and ecology of plant form and function
Dan Metcalfe, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia, plant functional ecology
Carla Catterall, Griffith University, Australia, conservation and restoration ecology
Fabrice DeClerck, CATIE, Costa Rica, landscape and community ecology
Peter Vesk, University of Melbourne, Australia
Richard Hobbs, Murdoch University, Australia
John Morgan, LaTrobe University, Australia
Etienne Laliberté, University of Canterbury, NZ

PARTICIPATING BUT NOT TRAVELLING TO MEETINGS
Cathy Mabry, Iowa State University, plant community ecology, restoration and functional ecology
Jen Fraterrigo, Iowa State University, USA, effects of land-use history
Henrique Pereira, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal, modeling biodiversity patterns

Participating in November 2008 meeting
Mayfield, Wells, Bonser, Metcalfe, DeClerk, Vesk, Morgan, Laliberte, Yi Ding, Sean McNamara.

Participating in September 2009 meeting
Mayfield, Queiroz, Catterall, Wells, Bonser, Metcalfe, DeClerk, Vesk, Morgan.

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In order to grow crops, raise cattle and generate forestry products, people have altered nearly every terrestrial region of the planet. Despite the global dominance of human-altered landscapes, ecological research and conservation efforts have, until recently, focused primarily on remnants of pristine ecosystems.

Over the last decade, data on plant species and functional diversity has begun to become available from a diversity of countryside landscapes. This creates a new opportunity to compare how plant communities respond to land use change across regions with different biogeographic and human histories and to start to identify cross-landscape generalities in patterns of diversity and ecological processes. This working group will bring together a group of researchers from Australia and around the world to assemble a global database and to test the generality of ecological patterns that have recently been reported in individual mosaic forest/agricultural countryside landscapes.

Last updated August 2009