I am a plant ecologist with interest in plant-water relations, tree ecophysiology and forest functions in a changing world. I completed my PhD at the Göttingen University in Germany working on carbon sequestration in tropical ecosystems. I was postdoc at Ulm University and Göttingen University working on plant hydraulic strategies. In January 2024 I joined Macquarie University as lecturer.

Solomon is a current PhD candidate at the Hawkesbury Institute of the Environment at Western Sydney University supervised by Jeff Powell, Adam Frew, and Rachael Nolan. Previously, he completed a MSc in Plant Science from Wageningen University in 2022 and BSc from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Cum Laude in 2018. Between his MSc and BSc, he spent two years workings as a research assistant for different field projects in Trinidad & Tobago, Palmyra Atoll (US territory), and Ecuador. His research focuses on the impact of fire on fungal ecology, with a specific interest in how mycorrhizal fungal traits can be used to help understand the effect of fire in Australia.

Nicola is a PhD candidate with a cotutelle through the University of Sydney and Australian National University. Her research agenda focuses on investigating the role of plant-host ecological function on plant-soil interactions. Through her PhD, Nicola aims to tie together the biochemical strategies used to investigate plant root exudates with genomic and morphological analysis of rhizosphere and endosphere communities. These methodologies seek to characterise pathways for plant-microbiome construction based on casuality.

Rebecca is a PhD Candidate at the University of Adelaide whose research interests lie in understanding the interactions between native plants, soil, and livestock to inform the effective restoration and sustainable management of Australia's rangelands. Rebecca's ongoing project utilises the 100-year livestock and rabbit excluded TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve as an ecological baseline, comparing it to adjacent grazed land at Koonamore, South Australia.

Lachlan Curran is a PhD student at the University of Queensland's School of the Environment. His research investigates how the activity of soil bacteria and archaea at fine spatial scales drives broader patterns in the terrestrial phosphorus (P) cycle. Throughout his PhD, Lachlan has combined approaches from soil chemistry, bioinformatics, and microbial ecology to understand how these microorganisms respond to changes in phosphorus availability—across genetic, cellular, population, and community levels. By integrating both fundamental and applied techniques in soil ecology, his work aims to improve the management and restoration of microbially mediated functions within the terrestrial phosphorus cycle.

PhD student in plant functional ecology

Manjeet is a dual-award Master of Research candidate in Plant Pathology at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE), Western Sydney University, and CCS Haryana Agricultural University, India. He is researching interactions between arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and plant pathogens. Specifically, he explores how Macrophomina phaseolina in Sorghum bicolor affects the diversity and composition of AM fungi in roots, and how the presence of AM fungi alters sorghum tolerance to M. phaseolina attack. He employs factorial glasshouse trials, GC-MS metabolomics, and DNA metabarcoding to monitor changes in AM fungal diversity and assess their impact on host tolerance and growth. Manjeet has been awarded the APPS Student & Early Career Researcher Travel Bursary, received consecutive HAU merit scholarships, and was selected for the ICAR-NAHEP intelligent agriculture program. He has presented his findings at the Australasian Plant Pathology Society conference and several in-house symposia and volunteers in the Environmental Epigenetics Lab (HIE) to expand his skills. A member of the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA), British Ecological Society (BES), and Australasian Plant Pathology Society (APPS), Manjeet aims to deploy tailored AM fungal consortia as a sustainable crop protection strategy that reduces chemical inputs.