Overview

• Current research activities
• Background
• Achievements
• Publication highlights

Current activities

Sue McIntyre's key research interests include grassland ecology, conservation biology and the identification of plant functional types in relation to:

• Disturbances and human land use
• landscape planning
• integration of natural resource conservation and production in rural landscapes.

Current research activities include:

• The restoration of grassy eucalypt woodlands in eastern Australia (e.g. Goorooyarroo and Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve collaboration with ANU, see http://people.anu.edu.au/adrian.manning/vegetation.html and associated pages)
• Theory and practice of assisted colonization of herbaceous plants for conservation and restoration purposes.
• The effects of intensive agriculture on native biodiversity, including the effects of soil nutrient enrichment on plant diversity.

Background

After a period as a Research Fellow with the University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Dr McIntyre joined CSIRO in 1982, taking up an Experimental Scientist position at CSIRO's Centre for Irrigation Research in Griffith, NSW, Australia.

She joined CSIRO Tropical Agriculture in 1993 and led a team, based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, for ten years exploring ecological, economic and social factors surrounding the sustainability of grazing lands.

In 2003, Dr McIntyre became a Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and moved south to their Canberra offices in the Australian Capital Territory.

Academic qualifications

After completing a Bachelor of Science, with Honours in Botany at the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Dr McIntyre was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in plant ecology in 1987 from the same university after completing research on the ecology of weeds of rice fields at the CSIRO laboratories in Griffith, NSW.

In 1990, she was awarded an Australian Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (from the Australian Research Council) to study causes and patterns of rarity in grassland plants.  This work was done through the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.

Achievements

Sue's work has contributed to better integration of biodiversity conservation in production landscapes in rural Australia at both policy and practical levels.  She led the development of the concept of habitat variegation and the identification of principles and thresholds needed to the impacts of production agriculture on the diversity and health of rural landscapes.  Internationally, her research in landscape ecology and plant functional types has been influential and highly cited.

Read about Dr McIntyre's Managing and conserving grassy woodlands (Book).