17 September 2004

A Charles Darwin University PhD student’s presentation of her research into the large-scale environmental effects of introduced grasses has been nationally recognised at the biennial Australian Weeds Conference.

L_R CDU's Dr Setterfield and Natalie Rossiter at National Weed conference

Presenting to more than 300 delegates from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA, Natalie Rossiter’s award for best oral presentation by a student was one of four Charles Darwin University papers regarding research into exotic grasses.

Ms Rossiter’s talk, Exotic grass invasion in the tropical savannas of northern Australia: Ecosystem consequences, won the award from more than 30 student papers. The Conference was held in Wagga Wagga last week.

“My presentation described research on the environmental impacts of Gamba grass invasion, particularly the impacts on savanna fire characteristics, nitrogen cycling and water cycling,” Ms Rossiter said.

Ms Rossiter began focusing on Gamba grass in an Honours project at Charles Darwin University and has continued this topic of research for her PhD.

She is supervised by Dr Samantha Setterfield, Dr Michael Douglas and Dr Lindsay Hutley from Charles Darwin University and Dr Garry Cook from CSIRO. Ms Rossiter’s research has been supported by a CSIRO student scholarship and by the Tropical Savannas Management Cooperative Research Centre.

Dr Setterfield and Dr Douglas also attended the conference and presented three papers jointly authored with Dr Hutley, Dr Sean Bellairs, Jane Barratt and Taegan Calnan from Charles Darwin University, Dr Garry Cook from CSIRO, and Ruth O’Connor from the Freshwater Ecology Cooperative Research Centre.

These papers were on the Effects of Mission grass invasion on fuel loads and nitrogen availability in a northern Australia tropical savanna, on Seed bank dynamics of two exotic grass species in northern Australia’s savannas and on the Effects of para grass invasion on terrestrial invertebrates of a tropical floodplain.

This research has been supported by Charles Darwin University internal grants, the Tropical Savannas Management CRC and Land and Water Australia.