Brief Project Summary: 

This project aims to address the significant knowledge gap of how species composition may change due to extreme rainfall events (droughts and flooding rainfall), grazing and nutrient addition, and in-turn, quantify the loss of ecosystem function resulting from species turnover. Further, this project will identify species that contribute the most to function.

The international DroughtNet protocol has been employed, where drought is imposed using fixed shelters that passively reduce rainfall events and remote camera traps will be used as phenocams to quantify the loss of gross primary production in pastures after an extreme drought event. Results from this study will provide land managers, in both the agricultural and environmental sectors, the critical knowledge of how natural and human-modified systems will be impacted by more frequent and extreme rainfall events in order to maintain food security and biodiversity.

Contribute to an international study. Example papers:

Ohlert, T., et al. (2025). Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity. Science 390:284–289.

Bondaruk V. F., et al. (2025). Aridity modulates grassland biomass responses to combined drought and nutrient addition. Nature Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02705-8

Smith, M. D., et al.. (2024). Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally. PNAS 121:e2309881120.

Please email an expression of interest, including CV to Dr Aaron Greenville, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney