Dr Christine Schlesinger

Phone: +61 8 8959 5218
Fax: +61 8 8959 5293
Email: christine.schlesinger@cdu.edu.au
Location: 15.2.11 Alice Springs campus

About

Christine Schlesinger conducted her doctoral research in Alice Springs, based at the CSIRO Centre for Arid Zone Research and with the Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) and holds a teaching degree from the NTU. She has an honours degree from the University of Sydney.

Christine is based in central Australia at CDU's Alice Springs campus. She has lived and worked in arid environments for over 15 years and has held previous appointments as a researcher at CSIRO in Canberra and as a lecturer at Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education's Alice Springs campus.

Research interests

• Arid-zone ecology
• Effects of invasive weeds on biodiversity
• Aboriginal interests in land-management and conservation
• Ecology of vertebrate animals
• Impacts of pastoralism and fire on vertebrate populations
• Conservation biology of lizards
  

Current projects

• Monitoring the effects of controlling buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris) in protected areas in central Australia on lizard communities
  Project team: Christine Schlesinger (CDU), Keith Christian (CDU), Shane Muldoon (NRETA), Scott Pullyblank (NRETA)
  Funding: CDU Internal Project grant
  

Supervision

Current students

• Jane Walker (PhD): The culture of conservation: Valuing Aboriginal land management in arid Australian Protected areas
  Supervisors: Prof Rolf Gerritsen (SSPR, CDU), Dr Christine Schlesinger (SELS, CDU), Dr Jocelyn Davies (CSIRO/Desert Knowledge CRC)
  

• Bruce Pascoe (Masters): Community Ecology of the avifauna of tall shrublands in arid Australia
  Supervisors: Dr Christine Schlesinger (CDU), Dr Chris Pavey (NRETA), Dr Keith McGuinness (CDU)

• Amelia Graham (Masters of Tropical Environmental Management): Analysis of wild harvest, enrichment and horticultural approaches to the production of bush foods
  Supervisors: Dr Christine Schlesinger (CDU), Prof Stephen Garnett (CDU), Dr Tony Cunningham (CDU), Dr Penny Wurm (CDU)

• Matt Gillis (Masters of Tropical Environmental Management): Bird species of Mulga (Acacia aneura): Diversity and abundance within a conservation reserve
  Supervisors: Dr Christine Schlesinger (CDU), Dr Richard Noske (CDU), Dr Penny Wurm (CDU)

• Megan Ford (Honours): Foraging behaviour and burrow use of the endangered skink Egernia slateri
  Supervisors: Dr Christine Schlesinger (CDU), Dr Chris Pavey (NRETA)

Recent completions

• Heidi Groffen (Masters of Captive Vertebrate Management, Charles Sturt University): Does weed management on land for wildlife properties in Alice Springs affect biodiversity? Working toward a self-assessment approach to encourage good management
  Supervisor: Dr Christine Schlesinger (CDU)

Teaching areas

Christine currently coordinates the following units:

• SBI201 Introductory Ecology
• SBI250 Tropical Environments
• SES360 Field Studies in Tropical and Desert Landscapes

She has a particular interest in teaching external students and in field based units or those that include a field work component.

Administrative duties

Christine is the School of Environmental and Life Sciences' representative in Alice Springs. She is the local contact for Environmental Science students in central Australia.

Publications

Schlesinger, C. A. (2007) Does vegetation cover affect the efficiency of pitfall trapping as a technique for sampling the abundance of lizards? Wildlife
Research 34:359-365

Schlesinger, C.A., Noble, J.C. & T. Weir (1997) Fire studies in mallee (Eucalyptus spp.) communities of western New South Wales: Reptile and beetle
populations in sites of differing fire history. Rangeland Journal 19(2): 109-205

Schlesinger, C.A. & R. Shine (1994) Choosing a rock: Perspectives of a bush-rock collector and a saxicolous lizard. Biological Conservation 67: 49-56

Schlesinger, C.A. & R. Shine (1994) Selection of diurnal retreat sites by the nocturnal gekkonid