Last week was our 2025 Research Retreat, where there was once again a high calibre of posters and presentations from Centre members. This year, we were thrilled to be joined by many invited speakers, including Alison Bentley, Renee Lafitte and Belinda Medlyn, who delivered engaging plenary talks. We were also joined by Tia Squire from Untapped who delivered a fantastic workshop on communication across neurotypes that sparked
The past three years as a postdoc in the Brodribb Lab at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) have been a transformative chapter. After completing my studies in Spain—from undergrad through to PhD—I was lucky to receive a mobility grant from the Spanish government, which launched me into a new adventure overseas. Not only did I relocate geographically, but I also
More than 52 million hectares of Australian land—an area equivalent to eight times the size of Tasmania—is degraded, with severe implications for biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. In 2022, Australia committed to the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), pledging to restore 30% of this degraded land by 2030, which equates to roughly 15.6 million hectares. Achieving this ambitious goal requires
Welcome to the 41st issue of the Plant Success newsletter! We’re conducting a short anonymous survey to gather feedback – whether you read every issue or just occasionally, we’d love to hear from you. This is your chance to tell us what you enjoy, what you’d like to see more of, and how we can make the newsletter even better
Author: Professor Tim Brodribb, the University of Tasmania. Plant behaviour may seem rather boring compared with the frenetic excesses of animals. Yet the lives of our vegetable friends, who tirelessly feed the entire biosphere (including us), are full of exciting action. It just requires a little more effort to appreciate. One such behaviour is the dynamic opening and closing of
PhD Students Caitlin Dudley, Kritika Sharma, Abhishek Soni and Chamilka Ratnayake ran an exhibit called Plant Detectives at the World Science Festival Brisbane on 22 and 23 March, 2025. Approximately 1,900 people visited the Queensland Museum Dinosaur Garden where the Plant Success display was. The exhibit gave attendees the opportunity to discover how plants have evolved with unique adaptions and
I think it is fair to say that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer the next big thing – rather it is the current big thing. Keeping tabs on ever-improving large language models (LLMs), protein structure prediction, foundational models for data analysis, graph neural networks and everything in between is overwhelming. I have an uneasy, yet strangely exhilarating feeling that
It is already the last Newsletter of the year! Well done to our vibrant Newsletter aficionado Phoebe Baldwin. Following our successful mid-term review, we completed the year with a review of past, current, and future directions. Chief Investigators were joined in Melbourne this week by several Associate Investigators who are bringing new opportunities and collaborations to the Centre. Discussions focussed on
This Centre’s loftiest goals transcend any particular trait, technique or species group. From the outset we have been aiming to develop general approaches and discover general principles in analysis, inference and prediction. But at the same time our collective feet are grounded in an eclectic mix of specific study systems, analytical approaches and practical challenges. This “creative tension” is also
