Chris Lee Honours Projects

Banded Vegetation Patterns in Arid Environments

Other supervisors: Dr Andrew Gunn

Background: Banded vegetation is a type of periodic vegetation pattern that appears as laterally continuous vegetated stripes (groves) separated by bare stripes (intergroves). Often, these patterns extend along the contours of shallow slopes. These slopes are thought to facilitate runoff-runon processes that enable vegetation growth beyond what local precipitation availability might predict. Thu, banded vegetation systems act as refugia that maintain favourable microenvironments supporting both floral and faunal diversity.

Despite sharing a common name, these microenvironments of banded vegetation are found in a variety of arid landscapes across the globe. Species composition, aridity, soil and slope are some of the many axes that may vary between sites, with some areas with banded vegetation being generally considered flat. With minimal slope, overland water may no longer flow as expected across unvegetated, impermeable intergroves  to infiltrate vegetated, permeable groves. Would such a system be subject to the same runoff-runon process to form banded vegetation or are other processes at play?

Project Aims: The aim of this project is to characterise how factors such as slope, species composition, soil and aridity interact to form banded vegetation patterns in SE Australia.

Techniques: Possible sampling techniques include belt transects, vegetation surveys, biomass measurements, species diversity tests, GPS RTK, aerial drone LiDAR (in conjunction with PhD students).

Note: This project includes very remote field work at Boolcoomatta Reserve, South Australia and may involve long periods of camping in tents with basic facilities.