Talking Plant Science: Lizzie Wandrag
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture is proud to bring you the next seminar in our Talking Plant Science series, presented by Dr Lizzie Wandrag.
Species interactions as drivers of plant community dynamics under global change
Species interactions, including mutualisms, competition and plant-soil feedbacks, govern patterns of coexistence, community assembly, and ecosystem resilience. Yet these interactions are often the first components of ecosystems to be disrupted under global change. I will explore how species interactions shape plant performance and community composition, drawing on empirical examples from both native and invaded systems. I will highlight how species interactions mediate invasion success and impact, and how altered disturbance regimes amplify or suppress these processes. Together, these perspectives underscore the central role of species interactions in shaping plant community dynamics in a rapidly changing world, and highlight the need to integrate species interactions into community ecology to improve predictions of community change.
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Dr Lizzie Wandrag
University of Tasmania
Lizzie a plant community ecologist with a focus on examining how biotic interactions affect and are affected by plant species’ and community response to global change. She is increasingly interested in the role of the soil microbiome in driving plant community composition and recovery from perturbation,
Lizzie often works with weedy and invasive plant species. Examining the factors that allows some plant species to dominate in some locations provides opportunities to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that govern plant community composition more generally.
