Craig Nitschke
Ph.D., Research Fellow in Forests Vulnerability to Climate Change, Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Research Interests:
The major focuses of my research relate to the concepts of forest ecology, sustainable forest management and assessing ecosystem vulnerability to climate change through field studies and ecological modelling. My research objectives are:
- To quantify the mechanisms that may make species vulnerable to predicted climate change through field studies and controlled experiments
- To understand the adaptive capacity of species to climate change by investigating the role of climate, disturbance, management, competition, species ecophysiology, genetic variation and their interactions through field studies and controlled experiments
- To investigate species sensitivity to climate through species field trials established across climatic gradients
- To develop robust and empirically based mechanistic models that can be used to assess species vulnerability to climate change and are continually validated and refined through field trials
- To develop or parameterise stand and landscape-level models for investigating the role of management, disturbance and competition on increasing the sensitivity of forest ecosystems to climate change
- To assess alternative strategies for managing Victoria’s forests under climate change in order to identify and quantify actions that are likely to adapt forests in order to maintain social, cultural, ecological, and economical values