Academic Staff - Associate Professor Glenda Wardle

Areas of Interest

My research focuses on the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape the spatial and temporal patterns of variation found in natural populations. On a conceptual level I want to combine our understanding of microevolutionary processes such as selection, genetic structure of populations, and gene flow, with the ecological processes of age structure, recruitment, dispersal, and dormancy. I have begun this work on life history variation by integrating studies of selection and demography to explain the coexistence of two life history types within populations of a short lived plant, Campanula americana . I used a matrix population model to quantify the contribution of winter annuals and biennials to the population growth rate and to evaluate the role of the soil seed bank . The life cycle graph of this model is shown below.

My general approach to research involves combining field work in natural populations with greenhouse experiments and mathematical modeling. My current research is on the comparative demography of four native Australian species of Trachymene (Apiaceae) with life history types which include: annual, biennial or perennial. The projects which I have recently supervised include: (1) The population biology, canopy seed bank dynamics and early seedling growth characteristics of two gymnosperm species: Callitris muelleri and Callitris rhomboidea. (2) The distribution of four Banksia species in relation to a soil moisture gradient. (3) The population biology and reproductive ecology of a rare and endangered species, Trachymene scapigera.

I am interested in supervising students who want to combine experimental and field based studies of native Australian plants or projects that combine a theoretical and an empirical approach to plant ecology or evolution.

Research Output

• Kalisz, S. & Wardle, G.M. (1994). Life History Variation in Campanula americana (Campanulaceae): Population Differentiation. American Journal of Botany 81: 521-527.
• Wade, M.J., Johnson, N.A. & Wardle, G.M. (1994). Analysis of Autosomal Polygenic Variation for the expression of Haldane's Rule in Flour Beetles. Genetics 138: 791-799.
• Ogden, J., Wardle, G. M. & Ahmed, M. (1987). Population Dynamics of the Canopy Dominant Tree Agathis australis (D.Don) Lindl. (Kauri) in New Zealand. II. Seedling Population Sizes and Gap-Phase Regeneration. New Zealand Journal of Botany 25: 231-242.