Bill Foley - Professor in Botany and Zoology (william.foley@anu.edu.au )
I have wide interests in nutritional ecology, and plant animal interactions. Most recently I have been concerned with developing new approaches to measure the food intake and nutritional status of free-ranging mammals including koalas and eastern gray kangaroos. Secondly I am interested in how animals translate physiological effects of plant secondary metabolites into behavioral changes. I am also particularly interested in using knowledge of the chemistry of Eucalyptus to help breed plantation trees that are resistant to herbivore attack and to develop new products from trees that can provide greater incentives to replant degraded land in Australia.

Ian Wallis - Research Fellow (ian.wallis@anu.edu.au)
Ian is a nutritional ecologist who has studied rat kangaroos, desert tortoises and voles in past appointments. Ian is involved in all projects in the lab and in particular manages much of the analytical work and statistical analyses involved in different projects.

Gavin Moran - Research Fellow (gavin.moran@anu.edu.au)
Gavin is one of Australia's leading scientists in applying molecular approaches to tree breeding. After a long career in CSIRO, Gavin has joined ANU to provide expertise in developing methods to incorporate enhanced herbivore resistance in commercial species of Eucalyptus. In particular he is responsible for a project on association mapping in Eucalyptus globulus.

Andras Keszei - Research associate (andras.keszei@anu.edu.au) Andras is involved with arange of differnet projects including analysis of terpenes and terpene synthase genes.

Carsten Kulheim- Research fellow (carsten.kulheim@anu.edu.au)
Carsten is managing the molecular side of a project to identify important resistance genes in Eucalyptus globulus. Prior to joining us, he worked with Prof Joerg Bohlmann at UBC in Vancouver and before that at Umea University in Sweden.

Students

Justin Billing - PhD student (justin.billing@anu.edu.au)  "Nutritional ecology of free-ranging eastern grey kangaroos"
Justin is developing a new approach based on faecal near infrared spectroscopy to directly predict diet quality, digestibility and food intake of kangaroos. Captive studies are used to develop calibration equations relating the near infrared spectra of the faeces to reliable measures of diet quality and intake. These calibration equations are then applied in the field to a range of ecologically interesting questions about kangaroo foraging in different habitats, over seasons and amongst different population cohorts.

Jane DeGabriel - PhD student (jane.degabriel@jcu.edu.au) "The role of Eucalyptus chemical defences in the population ecology of common brushtail possums"
Armed with a better understanding of how plant secondary metabolites influence food quality for marsupial folivores, Jane is studying a population of brushtail possums in NQ to see how variation in the quality of food resources available to individuals influences their foraging behaviour and potential for reproductive success. Jane did her field work based in Townsville and jointly supervised by Professor Chris Johnson of James Cook University and is now writing up in Aberdeen Scotland.

Suat Hui Yeoh - PhD Student (suat.yeoh@anu.edu.au) - "Population genetics of Eucalyptus globulus"
Suat Hui comes from Malaysia and is working on the population genetics of Eucalyptus globulus with the aim of using the genes that are discovered in the association mapping project to understand more about the population structure of this important species.

Visitors

Mr Jens Maintz - Jens worked with us on an IAESTE exchange in 2006 and found that BoZo had all the necessary ingredients for a great home - pool, table tennis, kitchen etc. Jens will complete experiments for his Diploma thesis at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany and continue work on Eucalyptus globulus.

Recent students
Karen Marsh, PhD 2006 "Plant secondary metabolites as determinants of diet choice in marsupials"
Karen focused on testing the effects of plant secondary metabolites on feeding decision of marsupials at a number of different scales. She showed how PSMs constrain an animal's ability to mix its diet and then identified how koalas make choices in the wild by using audiotelemetry of free-ranging koalas at Phillip Island.

Andras Keszei, PhD 2007 "Molecular background of defence chemical variation in Eucalyptus "
Variation in the profile of terpenes in Eucalyptus is a major factor in differential herbivory on Eucalyptus. Andras examined the molecular basis for this variation through the sequencing of genes for terpenes in Eucalyptus. This gene family is complex and quite different from other terpene synthase genes and expression studies and new approaches to identifying gene variants is beginning to explain why eucalypts vary so much in their terpene composition.

Martin Henery, PhD 2007 "Foliar Secondary Metabolites In Eucalyptus and Their Role In Resistance To Defoliating Insects"
In collaboration with State Forests of NSW, Martin worked on insect resistance traits of Eucalyptus grandis, trying to understand how some trees remain resistant to insect herbivores whereas others are repeatedly defoliated. Now working in Switzerland

Rose Andrew, PhD 2007 "Population and quantitative genetics of plant defence in Eucalyptus "
Rose's project brought together analytical chemistry, molecular population genetics and quantitative genetics to understand the extreme plant defence variation seen in Eucalyptus. Rose used marker-based methods for estimating quantitative genetic parameters in the wild, fine-scale spatial analysis and comparisons of population divergence in neutral markers and quantitative traits to study the causes of variation at within-population and landscape levels. Now working in Vancouver.

Melanie Garner, Honours 2005 "Detoxification in brushtail possums: the consequences of acid loads induced by plant secondary metabolites"
Melanie followed up earlier reports that the detoxification of Plant secondary metabolites leads to the production of significant acidic metabolites that can threaten acid-base homeostasis on marsupials. Acid base disruptions are probably a common effect of the detoxification of secondary metabolites in all mammals. Working in Canberra.

Ms Yasmin Hassan - Honours 2007 Yasmin did her Honours on " The genetic basis of chemical variation in tea tree" and found that consistent with other Myrtaceous species, individuals of Melaleuca alternifolia express different chemical leaf oil profiles, or chemotypes. Yasmin discovered a number of terepne synthase genes in this species and showed consistent patterns in gene variation were strongly correlated with different chemotypes. Expression studies are under way to confirm these relationships.

Past lab members:
Ben Moore (PhD)
Jennifer Sorensen (Postdoc)
Ivan Lawler (PhD)