DoctorLizzie Wandrag

Lizzie completed her PhD with the Bio-Protection Research Centre at Lincoln University in New Zealand, working with Philip Hulme, Richard Duncan and Andy Sheppard (CSIRO) to determine whether mutualistic interactions influence the extent to which Australian acacia become invasive in new locations. Lizzie then undertook postdocs at Rice University (Texas) and the University of Canberra, and very briefly held Fellowships at the University of New England (University Fellowship; working with Dr Tim Paine) and the Netherlands Institute for Ecology (Marie Curie Independent Fellowship; working with Wim van der Putten). Lizzie held a Lectureship in Global Change Biology at the University of York before moving back to Australia to join UTAS at the end of 2023.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Lizzie is a plant community ecologist and leads the Community Ecology Group at UTAS. Lizzie's research examines how biotic interactions affect and are affected by plant species’ and community response to global change. She combines true-to-scale field experiments with targeted glasshouse experiments and modelling approaches to understand how plant communities assemble, persist, and respond to perturbation. She is increasingly interested in the crucial role of the soil microbiome in driving plant community composition and recovery from perturbation,

Lizzie often works with weedy and invasive plant species. Examining the factors that allows some plant species to dominate in some locations provides opportunities to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that govern plant community composition more generally, while identifying the social and ecological impacts of those species is essential to informing management.