Centre for the Environment: publications
Featured publications

Landholder typologies illuminate pathways for social change in a deforestation hotspot
Simmons, B. A., Wilson, K. A., and Dean, A. J. (2020)
Journal of Environmental Management
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Determining the efficacy of camera traps, live capture traps, and detection dogs for locating cryptic small mammal species
Thomas, M. L., Baker, L., Beattie, J.
R., & Baker, A. M. (2020)
Ecology and Evolution
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Informing management decisions for ecological networks, using dynamic models calibrated to noisy time-series data
Adams, M. P., Sisson, S.A., Helmstedt, K.J., Baker, C.M., Plein, M., Holden, M.H., Holloway, J., Mengersen, K.L., McDonald-Madden, E. (2020)
Ecology Letters
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Rapidly assessing cobenefits to advance threat‐management alliances
Rees, M. W., Carwardine, J., Reeson, A. and Firn, J. (2020)
Conservation Biology
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Air quality and health
Visit QUT's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health and Allergy Research Group pages for a list of publications regarding air quality and health research.
Biodiversity
2020
- Broadbent, A. A. D., Firn, J., McGree, J. M., et al. (2020) Dominant native and non‐native graminoids differ in key leaf traits irrespective of nutrient availability. Global Ecology Biogeography. 2020; 29: 1126– 1138.
- Firn J., McGree J. M., Harvey E., et al. (2020) Leaf nutrients, not specific leaf area, are consistent indicators of elevated nutrient inputs. Nature ecology & evolution 3 (3), 400-406.
- Firn, J., Nguyen, H., Schütz, M., Risch, A. C. (2020) Leaf trait variability between and within subalpine grassland species differs depending on site conditions and herbivory. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286 (1907), 20190429.
- Gilbert, B., MacDougall, A. S., Kadoya, T., et al. (2020) Climate and local environment structure asynchrony and the stability of primary production in grasslands. Global Ecol Biogeogr. 2020; 29: 1177– 1188.
- Komatsu, K. J., Avolio, M. L., Lemoine N. P., et al. (2020) Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (36), 17867-17873.
- Kutt, A. S., Kern, P. L., Schoenefuss, P., Moffatt, K., Janetzki, H., Hurwood, D. and Baker, A. M. (2020) Diet of the eastern barn owl (Tyto delicatula) in the Simpson Desert reveals significant new records and a different mammal fauna to survey data. Australian Mammalogy.
- Riordan, C., Pearce, C., McDonald, B. J. F., Gynther, I., & Baker, A. (2020) Vegetation structure and ground cover attributes describe the occurrence of a newly discovered carnivorous marsupial on the Tweed Shield Volcano caldera, the endangered black-tailed dusky antechinus (Antechinus arktos). Ecology and Evolution, 10(4), pp. 2104-2121.
- Risch, A. C., Zimmermann, S., Ochoa-Hueso, R., Schütz, M., Frey, B., Firn, J. (2020) Soil net nitrogen mineralisation across global grasslands. Nature Communications 10 (1), 1-10.
- Sitters, J., Wubs, E. R. J., Bakker, E. S., et al. (2020) Nutrient availability controls the impact of mammalian herbivores on soil carbon and nitrogen pools in grasslands. Glob Change Biol. 2020; 26: 2060– 2071.
- Thomas, M. L., Baker, L., Beattie, J. R., & Baker, A. M. (2020) Determining the efficacy of camera traps, live capture traps, and detection dogs for locating cryptic small mammal species. Ecology and Evolution, 10(2), pp. 1054-1068.
2019
- Borer, E.T., Lind, E.M., Firn, J., Seabloom, E.W., Anderson, T.M., Bakker, E.S., Biederman, L., La Pierre, K.J., MacDougall, A.S., Moore, J.L., Risch, A.C., Schutz, M. and Stevens, C.J. (2019) More salt, please: global patterns, responses and impacts of foliar sodium in grasslands. Ecol Lett, 22: 1136-1144.
- Cleland, E., Lind, E., DeCrappeo, N., DeLorenze, E., Abbott Wilkins, R., Adler, P., Bakker, J., Brown, C., Davies, K., Esch, E., Firn, J. (2019) Belowground biomass response to nutrient enrichment depends on light limitation across globally distributed grasslands. Ecosystems, 22(7), 1466–1477.
- Crowther, T. W., Riggs, C., Lind, E. M., Borer, E. T., Seabloom, E. W., Hobbie, S. E., Wubs, J., Adler, P. B., Firn, J., Gherardi, L., Hagenah, N., Hofmockel, K. S., Knops, J. M. H., McCulley, R. L., MacDougall, A. S., Peri, P. L., Prober, S. M., Stevens, C. J. and Routh, D. (2019) Sensitivity of global soil carbon stocks to combined nutrient enrichment. Ecology Letters, 22: 936-945.
- Doohan, B., Kemp, J., & Fuller, S. (2019) Diversity favours the old: Metrics of avian diversity increase in aging regrowth Acacia woodlands of semi-arid eastern Australia. Global Ecology and Conservation, 20, Article number: e00798 1-11.
- Krishnan, V., Robinson, N., Firn, J., Applegate, G., Herbohn, J., Schmidt, S. (2019) Without management interventions, endemic wet‐sclerophyll forest is transitioning to rainforest in World Heritage listed K’gari (Fraser Island), Australia. Ecol Evol. 2019; 9: 1378– 1393.
- Zhang, P., Kowalchuk, G. A., Soons, M. B., et al. (2019) SRUD: A simple non‐destructive method for accurate quantification of plant diversity dynamics. J Ecol. 2019; 107: 2155– 2166.
Ecological monitoring
2020
- Corcoran, E., Denman, S., & Hamilton, G. (2020) New technologies in the mix: Assessing N-mixture models for abundance estimation using automated detection data from drone surveys. Ecology and Evolution.
- Hamilton, G., Corcoran, E., Denman, S., Hennekam, M., & Koh, L. (2020) When you can't see the koalas for the trees: Using drones and machine learning in complex environments. Biological Conservation, 247, Article number: 108598 1-7.
- Holloway-Brown, J., Helmstedt, K. J., & Mengersen, K. L. (2020) Stochastic spatial random forest (SS-RF) for interpolating probabilities of missing land cover data. Journal of Big Data, 7(1), 1-23.
2019
- Corcoran, E., Denman, S., Hanger, J., Wilson, B. & Hamilton, G. (2019) Automated detection of koalas using low-level aerial surveillance and machine learning. Sci Rep 9, 3208.
- Devitt, S., Baxter, P., & Hamilton, G. (2019) The ethics of biosurveillance. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 32(5-6), 709–740.
- Doohan, B., Fuller, S., Parsons, S. & Peterson, E. (2019) The sound of management: Acoustic monitoring for agricultural industries. Ecological Indicators 96: 739-746.
- Froese, J., Pearse, A. & Hamilton, G. (2019) Rapid spatial risk modelling for management of early weed invasions: bridging the gap between ecological complexity and operational needs. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 2019;00:1-13.
- Holloway, J., Helmstedt, K. J., Mengersen, K., & Schmidt, M. (2019) A decision tree approach for spatially interpolating missing land cover data and classifying satellite images. Remote Sensing, 11(15), 1796.
Environmental monitoring and remediation
2020
- Arnold, S., Bulovic, N., McIntyre, N., Finch, W., Larsen, J., Reading, L. & Baumgartl, T. (2020) Event-based deep drainage and percolation dynamics in Vertosols and Chromosols. Hydrological Processes. 34, 2, p. 370-386 17 p.
- Feng, Y., Wang, J., Bai, Z., Reading, L. & Jing, Z. (2020) Three-dimensional quantification of macropore networks of different compacted soils from opencast coal mine area using X-ray computed tomography. Soil and Tillage Research. 198, p. 1-9 9 p., 104567.
- Suara, K., Khanarmuei, M., Ghosh, A., Yu, Y., Zhang, H., Soomere, T., and Brown, R.J., Material and debris transport patterns in Moreton Bay, Australia: The influence of Lagrangian coherent structures. Science of the Total Environment, 2020. 721.
- Mardani, N., Suara, K., Fairweather, H., Brown, R., McCallum, A., and Sidle, R.C. Improving the accuracy of hydrodynamic model predictions using Lagrangian calibration. Water (Switzerland), 2020. 12(2).
- Suara, K.A., Wang, H., Chanson, H., Gibbes, B., and Brown, R.J., Response of GPS-Tracked drifters to wind and water currents in a tidal estuary. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2019. 44(4): p. 1077-1089.
2019
- Feng, Y., Wang, J., Bai, Z. & Reading, L. (2019) Effects of surface coal mining and land reclamation on soil properties: A review. Earth-Science Reviews. 191, p. 12-25 14 p.
- Feng, Y., Wang, J., Liu, T., Bai, Z. & Reading, L. (2019) Using computed tomography images to characterize the effects of soil compaction resulting from large machinery on three-dimensional pore characteristics in an opencast coal mine dump. Journal of Soils and Sediments. 19, 3, p. 1467-1478 12 p.
- Reading, L., Bajracharya, K. & Wang, J. (2019) Simulating deep drainage and nitrate leaching on a regional scale: implications for groundwater management in an intensively irrigated area. Irrigation Science. 37, 5, p. 561-581 21 p.
Environmental decision making
2020
- Adams, M. P., Koh, E. J. Y., Vilas, M. P., Collier, C. J., Lambert, V. M., Sisson, S. A., Quiroz, M., McDonald-Madden, E., McKenzie, L. J., O’Brien, K. R. (2020) Predicting seagrass decline due to cumulative stressors. Environmental Modelling & Software, Vol. 130, Paper 104717.
- Adams, M. P., Sisson, S. A., Helmstedt, K. J., Baker, C. M., Plein, M., Holden, M. H., Holloway, J., Mengersen, K. L., McDonald-Madden, E. (2020) Informing management decisions for ecological networks, using dynamic models calibrated to noisy time-series data. Ecology Letters, Vol. 23, pp. 607-619.
- Xiao, M., Hamilton, D. P., O’Brien, K. R., Adams, M. P., Willis, A., Burford, M. A. (2020) Are laboratory growth rate experiments relevant to explaining bloom-forming cyanobacteria distributions at global scale? Harmful Algae, Vol. 92, Paper 101732.
2019
- Baird, M. E., Wild-Allen, K. A., Parslow, J., Mongin, M., Robson, B., Skerratt, J., Rizwi, F., Soja-Wozniak, M., Jones, E., Herzfield, M., Margvelashvili, N., Andrewartha, J., Langlais, C., Adams, M. P., Cherukuru, N., Hadley, S., Ralph, P. J., Schroeder, T., Steven, A. D. L., Rosebrock, U., Laiolo, L., Gustafsson, M., Harrison, D. (2019) CSIRO Environmental Modelling Suite: Scientific description of the optical and biogeochemical models (vB3p0). Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, Vol. 2019, Paper 115.
- Lambert, V., Adams, M. P., Collier, C., Carter, A., Saunders, M., Brodie, J., Bainbridge, Z., Rasheed, M., Turner, R., O’Brien, K. R. (2019) Towards Ecologically Relevant Targets: Impact of flow and sediment discharge on seagrass communities in the Great Barrier Reef. Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, pp. 624-630.
- Samson, J. E., Ghisalberti, M., Adams, M. P., Reidenbach, M. A., Long, M. H., Shavit, U., Pasour, V. B. (2019) Editorial: Canopies in aquatic ecosystems: integrating form, function, and biophysical processes. Frontiers in Marine Science, Vol. 6, Paper 697.
- Vilas, M. P., Adams, M. P., Ball, M. C., Meynecke, J. O., Santini, N. S., Swales, A., Lovelock, C. E. (2019) Night and day: shrinking and swelling of stems of diverse mangrove species growing along environmental gradients. PLoS One, Vol. 14, Paper e0221950.
Human dimensions and governance
2020
- Dean, A., Gulliver, R., Wilson, K. (2020) “Taking action for the Reef?” – Australians do not connect Reef conservation with individual climate‐related actions. Conservation Letters, Society for Conservation Biology.
- Carwardine, J., Firn, J., Martin, T. G., Nicol, S., Reeson, A., Reyes, R. P. (2020) Priority Threat Management for biodiversity conservation: A handbook. Journal of applied ecology 56 (2), 481-490
- Friedman, R. S., Guerrero, A. M., McAllister, R. R., Rhodes, J. R., Santika, T., Budiharta, S., Indrawan, T., Hutabarat, J. A., Kusworo, A., Yogaswara, H., Meijaard, E., St. John, F. A., Struebig, M. J. and Wilson, K. A. (2020) Beyond the community in participatory forest management: A governance network perspective. Land Use Policy, 97, p.104738.
- Loh, S., Foth, M., Caldwell, G. A., Garcia-Hansen, V., & Thomson, M. (2020) A More-than-Human Perspective on Understanding the Performance of the Built Environment. Architectural Science Review.
- McKinnon, H., Foth, M., & Sade, G. (2020, Jul 6-10) 1300 Pieces of Rubbish: A Collaborative Approach to Making Sense of Everyday Resource Sufficiency in the Home. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference, Eindhoven, NL. New York, NY: ACM.
- Rees, M. W., Carwardine, J., Reeson, A. and Firn, J. (2020) Rapidly assessing cobenefits to advance threat‐management alliances. Conservation Biology.
- Reyes, R. P., Firn, J., Nicol, S., Chades, I., Stratford, D. S., Martin, T. G., Whitten, S. (2020) Building a stakeholder-led common vision increases the expected cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation. PloS one 14 (6).
- Santika, T., Budiharta, S., Law, E.A., Dennis, R.A., Dohong, A., Struebig, M.J., Gunawan, H., Meijaard, E. and Wilson, K.A. (2020) Interannual climate variation, land type and village livelihood effects on fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Global Environmental Change.
- Simmons, B. A., Archibald, C.L., Wilson, K. A., and Dean, A. J. (2020) Program Awareness, Social Capital, and Perceptions of Trees Influence Participation in Private Land Conservation Programs in Queensland, Australia. Environmental Management.
- Simmons, B. A., Wilson, K. A., and Dean, A. J. (2020) Landholder typologies illuminate pathways for social change in a deforestation hotspot. Journal of Environmental Management, 254, 109777.
- van Velden, J. L., Wilson, K., Lindsey, P. A., McCallum, H., Moyo, B. H. Z. and Biggs, D. (2020) Bushmeat hunting and consumption is a pervasive issue in African savannahs: insights from four protected areas in Malawi. Biodiversity and Conservation. 29:1443-1464.
- Utami, N. W., Wirawan, I. G., Firn, J., Kepakisan, A. & Kusdyana, A., Nicol, S., Carwardine, J. (2020) Prioritizing management strategies to achieve multiple outcomes in a globally significant Indonesian protected area. Conservation Science and Practice. 2 (6).
- Yigitcanlar, T., Butler, L., Windle, E., Desouza, K., Mehmood, R., & Corchado, J. (2020) Can building ‘artificially intelligent cities’ protect humanity from natural disasters, pandemics and other catastrophes? An urban scholar’s perspective. Sensors, 20(10), 2988.
- Yigitcanlar, T., Desouza, K., Butler, L., & Roozkhosh, F. (2020) Contributions and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) in building smarter cities: insights from a systematic review of the literature. Energies, 13(6), 1473.
- Yigitcanlar, T., Kamruzzaman, M., Teimouri, R., Degirmenci, K., & Aghnayi, F. (2020) Association between park visits and mental health in a developing county context: the case of Tabriz, Iran. Landscape and Urban Planning, 199(1), 103805.
2019
- Armstrong, K., & Leimbach, T. (2019) Art-eco-science. Field collaborations. Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (Summer 2019), 48: 108-127.
- Clarke, R., Heitlinger, S., Light, A., Forlano, L., Foth, M., & DiSalvo, C. (2019) More-Than-Human Participation: Design for Sustainable Smart City Futures. ACM interactions, 26(3), 60-63.
- Fels, D. I., Blackler, A., Cook, D., & Foth, M. (2019) Ergonomics in apiculture: A case study based on inspecting movable frame hives for healthy bee activities. Heliyon, 5(7).
- Hamman, E. (2019) Bilateral agreements for the protection of migratory birdlife: the implementation of the China-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement (CAMBA). Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law, 22(1), pp. 137-159.
- Hamman, E. (2019) Clearing of native vegetation in Queensland: An analysis of finalised prosecutions over a 10-year period (2007-2018). Environmental and Planning Law Journal, 36(6), pp. 658-673.
- Hamman, E. (2019) The role of NGOs in monitoring compliance under the World Heritage Convention: options for an improved tripartite regime. In Voight, C (Ed.) International judicial practice on the environment: Questions of legitimacy (Studies on International Courts and Tribunals). Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 417-442.
- Hamman, E. (2019) The use of satellites in environmental regulation: Applications and implications for biodiversity conservation. Australian Environment Review, 34(5), pp. 88-92.
- Hamman, E., Van Geelen, T., & Akhtar-Khavari, A. (2019) Governance tools for the conservation of wetlands: the role of the Montreux Record under the Ramsar Convention. Marine and Freshwater Research, 70(11), pp. 1493-1502.
- Holleland, H., Hamman, E., & Phelps, J. (2019) Naming, shaming and fire alarms: The compilation, development and use of the list of world heritage in danger. Transnational Environmental Law, 8(1), pp. 35-57.
- Yigitcanlar, T., Foth, M., & Kamruzzaman, M. (2019) Towards Post-Anthropocentric Cities: Reconceptualising Smart Cities to Evade Urban Ecocide. Journal of Urban Technology, 26(2), 147-152.
- Yigitcanlar, T., Kamruzzaman, M., Foth, M., Sabatini, J., da Costa, E., & Ioppolo, G. (2019) Can cities become smart without being sustainable? A systematic review of the literature. Sustainable Cities and Society, 45, 348-365.
Marine research
2020
- Duce, S., Dechnik, B., Webster, J., Hua, Q., Sadler, J., Webb, G., Nothdurft, L., Salas-Saavedra, M., & Vila-Concejo, A. (2020) Mechanisms of spur and groove development and implications for reef platform evolution. Quaternary Science Reviews, 231, Article number: 106155 1-20.
- Sanborn, K., Webster, J., Webb, G., Braga, J., Humblet, M., Nothdurft, L., Patterson, M., Dechnik, B., Warner, S., Graham, T., Murphy, R., Yokoyama, Y., Obrochta, S., Zhao, J., & Salas-Saavedra, M. (2020) A new model of Holocene reef initiation and growth in response to sea-level rise on the Southern Great Barrier Reef. Sedimentary Geology, 397, Article number: 105556 1-18.
- Ceccarelli DM, McLeod IM, Boström-Einarsson L, Bryan SE, Chartrand KM, Emslie MJ, et al. (2020) Substrate stabilisation and small structures in coral restoration: State of knowledge, and considerations for management and implementation. PLoS ONE 15(10): e0240846.
2019
- Dechnik, B., Bastos, A., Vieira, L., Webster, J., Fallon, S., Yokoyama, Y., Nothdurft, L., Sanborn, K., Batista, J., Moura, R., & Amado-Filho, G. (2019) Holocene reef growth in the tropical southwestern Atlantic: Evidence for sea level and climate instability. Quaternary Science Reviews, 218, pp. 365-377.
- Erler, D., Shepherd, B., Linsley, B., Nothdurft, L., Hua, Q., & Lough, J. (2019) Has Nitrogen Supply to Coral Reefs in the South Pacific Ocean Changed Over the Past 50 Thousand Years? Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 34(4), pp. 567-579.
- Passos, T. U., Webster, J. M., Braga, J. C., Voelker, D., Renema, W., Beaman, R. J., Nothdurft, L. D., Hinestrosa, G., Clarke, Samantha, Yokoyama, Y., Barcellos, R. L., Kinsela, M. A., Nothdurft, Linda N., & Hubble, T. (2019) Paleoshorelines and lowstand sedimentation on subtropical shelves: a case study from the Fraser Shelf, Australia. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 66(4), pp. 547-565.
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Centre for the Environment
Level 6, P Block
Gardens Point
2 George St
Brisbane QLD 4000 Australia
Postal address
Centre for the Environment
GPO Box 2434
Brisbane QLD 4001