Heather Neilly
@heatherneilly.bsky.social
2024 ARC Industry Fellow. 2021 ESA Wiley Next Gen Ecologist. Arid zone. Rangelands. Ecological restoration. Plants. Animals. Soil. The whole shebang @FedUniAustralia Calperum Station. Nanya Station. Thoughts my own
Some more Sentinel Hub images of the Little Desert (Victoria, Australia) wildfires, showing the breadth of impact. The fire spans about 55 km from east to west. Some unburnt patches remain within the fire boundary, but there are also extensive areas with no unburnt refuges.
We applied 22,500m2 of woody debris to overgrazed arid Australia, the first pic sums up the results pretty nicely!! It not only helped veg and soil recover but provided habitat for reptiles and mammals, details in Restoration Ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Three must read papers for PhD students. #scisky #PhD #science #research #academicsky 1. The importance of stupidity in scientific research Open Access journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Wow what a project! Teaching crocs and goannas to not eat invasive and poisonous cane toads via taste aversion. Congrats to all involved on such an ambitious, collaborative project in remote northern Aust #DCBA #MacquarieUniversity #BunubaRangers #ESAus2024
How cool is this from the City of Melbourne?! Are searchable planting guides available for other Aus cities? #ESAus2024
A fantastic talk by @drkyliesoanes.bsky.social on urban biodiversity and working with practitioners. But more importantly a masterclass in how to deliver an engaging plenary #ESAus2024 #scicom
Cities are making brushtail possums sick! Check out Tara’s poster 168 and speed talk at 5:20pm at the Nature in Cities symposium @ESAus2024
A traditional smoking ceremony to welcome us to Wurundjeri country for #ESAus2024 Looking forward to a week of inspiration and connection
Have you packed your most fabulous animal prints for #ESAus2024? We'll be snapping pics of people's style each day of the conference for the chance to win best-dressed! #ecology
Strongly agree with this letter in Science arguing that field-based research should be more highly and fairly valued in academia. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The value of field research in academia
From anthropology to zoology, immersion within communities, cultural settings, and study systems is integral to research and learning (1, 2). Fieldwork, the direct observation and collection of data i...
science.org
A rare treat in the aussie desert! 50mm (and counting) of soft soaking rain. Enough to shut most tracks and cancel fieldwork. Better get started on that data entry I guess #caleprum #wildoz #officebound
Final catch of the day, what a beauty! The apex predator Burton’s legless lizard (Lialis burtonis) wrapping up an amazing week, many thanks to @harrison-kent.bsky.social @hannah-churches.bsky.social @rebeccaarnold.bsky.social and the formidable @drdunnart.bsky.social and her team of legends!
Very excited to get these Tomst soil moisture and temp loggers into our erosion scald ‘branching’ (aka woody debris addition) experimental plots on the Murray River floodplain. These scalds are the result of 100 yrs of sheep grazing. Can you tell the difference between our control and treatment?!
Catch of the day: double dunnies! Common dunnart (Sminthopsis murina) lucky @drdunnart.bsky.social is here #calperum
Catch of the day Desert Skink Liopholis inornata aka ‘bulldog’ @hannah-churches.bsky.social #calperum
And we’re off! A week of pitfall trapping in the beautiful mallee #calperum #wildoz #ecology @harrykent.bsky.social @hannah-churches.bsky.social @rebeccaarnold.bsky.social
A little eastern mallee dragon (Ctenophorus spinodomus) from setting up some pit fall traps this morning. #WildOz
Biodiversity impacts of the 2019–2020 Australian megafires. In this massive collaboration, >100 Australian ecologists put a novel spin on meta-analysis to discover how fire frequency, interval, unburnt area, pre-fire drought and protected areas modify fire impacts.🌏 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Biodiversity impacts of the 2019–2020 Australian megafires - Nature
Data collected from more than 2,000 taxa provide an unparalleled opportunity to quantify how extreme wildfires affect biodiversity, revealing that the largest effects on plants and animals were in are...
nature.com
Please share, and help me find a #PhD student to study #ecosystem #engineers and their role in #ecological #restoration
Hello blue sky! I’m a #restoration #ecologist working in #aridzone #dryland #conservation in particular #mallee #woodlands in #Australia currently an #ARCfellow and some extra #s for good measure #wildoz #ecology #research #fringedlily #plants #animals
