Pip Griffin (PhD Candidate)

Climate change will affect every ecosystem to some extent, but Australia’s alpine region is particularly threatened. Little is known about the evolutionary capacity and ecological resilience of our alpine ecosystems. How will species evolve in response to a warmer, drier climate? How will climate change affect the abundance of different species and the interactions between them?

Aims of the PhD project:

• to investigate how drought is presently affecting grassland and open heath dominated by tussock grasses (Poa hiemata and P. hothamensis) in the Bogong High Plains
• to predict how the grass populations will evolve with climate change 
• to determine how Bogong High Plains grassland invertebrate communities have responded to a four-year period of artificial warming and drying
• to predict how future climate change will affect the ecology of this system

I am using genetic techniques (focussing on chloroplast non-coding DNA and nuclear microsatellite regions) and glasshouse experiments to investigate the population genetics and drought tolerance of the alpine grasses – combined with field ecological surveys and invertebrate trapping, to focus on the natural ecosystem wherever possible. My results should be of direct application in long-term management plans for the Alpine National Park, including revegetation efforts and the maintenance of invertebrate biodiversity. They will also shed light on larger-scale questions about evolution, alpine ecosystems and climate change around the world.