Dr Joslin Moore

 

 

Research Fellow,

The Applied Environmental Decision Analysis Group

School of Botany, The University of Melbourne,

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

 

 

Location: Botany Department (G07B)

Phone: +61 3 8344 3332

Fax: +61 3 9348 1620

Email: joslinm@unimelb.edu.au

 

 

 

 

The aim of my research is to use ecological theory as a tool to solve and inform applied ecological problems that will aid in the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources. My current focus is working with practitioners to address invasive species management problems using decision theory, population models and other quantitative tools. More broadly my research interests include the theory of the origin and maintenance of biological diversity, predicting the impact of exotic species, developing management strategies for their control and using optimisation tools and decision theory to identify and prioritise areas of high conservation value.

In 2000, I completed a PhD on invasion processes in plant community ecology at the NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London UK . In February 2000 started a two year post-doc jointly at the University of Cambridge, UK and University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The project, "A blueprint for conservation in Africa", utilised optimisation methods and a database containing the distribution of vertebrates in sub-Saharan Africa to identify areas of high conservation value. I returned to Australia in mid 2002 and after some time at CSIRO Entomology (invasibility in complex networks) I took a break from research from Jan 2004. I started my current position in June 2007.

 

Current Research

 

Publications

 

Collaborators

 

Current Research

 

My current research projects include:

 

▪ Developing a control strategy for willow in the Bogong High Plains

▪ Optimal allocation of resources between quarantine and surveillance

 

Willow control on the Bogong High Plains

In collaboration with operational staff at Parks Victoria, we are using decision models to develop a control strategy for willows on the Bogong High Plains that incorporates active adaptive management. Grey sallow willow (Salix cinerea) seedlings were first observed in alpine wetlands on the Bogong High Plains in January 2004. Willow is considered a significant threat to the hydrological function and vegetation structure of wetlands. Key decisions that the models will address include:

 

▪ How much effort should be allocated to controlling seedlings and how much to controlling nearby adults (the seed source)

▪ Where should we look for new outbreaks?

▪ Which adult populations should be tackled first?

▪ What is an appropriate budget - how much will it cost to control this invasion?

 

This project represents an iterative process to develop a long term willow control strategy for the High plains based on knowledge gained through a structured decision process and active adaptive management and provides an example of scientists and land managers working together to manage an emerging threat.

 

Quarantine or surveillance?

How much money should an organisation spend on stopping rats from invading Barrow Island? How much effort should we put into checking that DFTD has not entered one of our disease free populations? How much money should we spend looking for an invasive sea star in Hansen Bay, or should we enforce recreational boat cleaning?

 

Invasive species, like rats, cats and weeds, threaten many species on Australia's offshore islands. Some of these threatened species occur nowhere else in the world. Some islands do not have these invasive species, yet. On other islands we have successfully removed one or more of the invaders. For these pest free islands how much effort should we put into quarantine, reducing the risk of a species invading? Alternatively we could spend money on surveillance, looking for the pest on the island with the view of eradicating it before it gets out of control. I am working with a team of researchers and land managers to develop a simple model and rule of thumb for allocating resources to each of these activities to minimise the total resources applied to managing the potential invasion on the island.

 

Publications

 

  1. Walther, B.A. & Moore, J.L. (2005). The definitions of bias, precision, and accuracy, and their use in testing the performance of species richness estimators, Ecography 28: 815-829.
  2. Moore, J.L., Balmford, A. Allnutt, T. & Burgess, N. (2004). Integrating costs into conservation planning across Africa. Biological Conservation 117: 343-350.
  3. Moore, J.L., Folkmann, M., Balmford, A., Brooks, T., Burgess, N., Rahbek, C., Williams, P. & Krarup, J. (2003). Heuristic and optimal solutions for set-covering problems in conservation biology. Ecography 26: 595-601.
  4. Moore, J.L., Balmford, A., Brooks, T., Burgess, N., Hansen, L.A., Rahbek, C. & Williams, P.H. (2003). Indicator taxa for conservation priority setting: are there good surrogates for sub-Saharan African vertebrates? Conservation Biology 7: 207-218.
  5. Williams PH, Moore J.L., Brooks TM, Strand H, D'Amico J, Oglethorpe J, Wisz M, Burgess ND, Balmford A, Rahbek C. (2003). Integrating biodiversity priorities with socioeconomic constraints for regional conservation planning. Biodiversity and Conservation 12: 1297-1320.
  6. Moore, J.L., Balmford, A., Brooks, T., Burgess, N., Davies, R., Hansen, L.A., Manne, L., Rahbek, C. & Williams, P. (2002). The distribution of cultural and biological diversity in Africa. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. 269: 1645-53.
  7. Mouquet, N., Moore, J.L. and Loreau, M. (2002). Plant species richness and community productivity: why the mechanism that promotes coexistence matters. Ecology Letters
  8. Balmford, A., Moore, J., Brooks, T., Burgess, N., Hansen, L.A., Williams, P., & Rahbek, C. (2001). Conservation conflicts across Africa. Science 291: 2616-2619.
  9. Balmford A., Moore J.L, Brooks T., Burgess N., Hansen L.A., Lovett J.C. Tokumine S., Williams P., Woodward F.I., Rahbek C. (2001). People and biodiversity in Africa - Response. Science 293:1591-1592.
  10. Brooks, T., Balmford, A., Burgess, N., Fjeldsa, J., Hansen, L.A., Moore, J., Rahbek, C. & Williams, P. (2001) Towards a blueprint for conservation in Africa. BioScience 51:613-624.
  11. Brooks, T., Balmford, A., Burgess, N., Hansen, L.A., Moore, J., Rahbek, C., Williams, P., Bennun, L., Byaruhanga, A., Kasoma, P., Njoroge, P., Pomeroy, D. & Wondafrash, M. (2001) Conservation priorities for birds and biodiversity: do East African Important Bird Areas represent species diversity in other terrestrial vertebrate groups? Ostrich Suppl: 3-12.
  12. Howden, S.M., Moore, J.L., McKeon, G.M., Carter, J.O. (2001). Global change and the mulga woodlands of southwest Queensland: greenhouse gas emissions, impacts, and adaptation. Environment International 27:161-166.
  13. Moore, J.L., Balmford A., Brooks T., Burgess N., Folkmann, M., Hansen L.A., Krarup, J., Lovett J.C., Tokumine S., Williams P., Woodward F.I., Rahbek C. (2001). Complementarity analyses reveal extent of conservation conflict in Africa. Science Online, available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/eletters/293/5535/1591.
  14. Moore, J.L., Mouquet, N., Lawton, J.H. and Loreau, M. (2001). Coexistence, saturation and invasion resistance in simulated plant assemblages. Oikos 94:303-314.
  15. Moore, J.L., Howden, S.M., McKeon, G.M., Carter, J.O., Scanlan, J.C. (2001) The dynamics of grazed woodlands in southwest Queensland, Australia and their effect on greenhouse gas emissions. Environment International 27:147-153.
  16. Fagan, W.F., Meir, E. and Moore, J.L. (1999). Variability thresholds for extinction risk and their implications for conservation strategies. American Naturalist 154: 510-20.
  17. Howden, S.M., Moore, J.L., McKeon, G.M., Reyenga, P.J., Carter, J.O. and Scanlan, J.C.(1999). Dynamics of Mulga Woodlands in South-West Queensland: Global Change Impacts and Adaptation. In Modsim 99 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation Proc, pp. 137-142. December 6-9, Hamilton, New Zealand. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia, Canberra.
  18. Parma, A.M., Amarasekare, P., Kareiva, P., Mangel, M., Moore, J.L., Murdoch, W.W., Noonburg, E., Pascual, M.A., Possingham, H.P., Shea, K., Wilcox, C. and Yu, D. (1998). What can adaptive management do for our fish, forests, food and biodiversity? Integrative Biology, Issues, News, and Reviews 1:16-26
  19. Shea, K., Amarasekare, P., Kareiva, P., Mangel, M., Moore, J.L., Murdoch, W.W., Noonburg, E., Parma, A.M., Pascual, M.A., Possingham, H.P., Wilcox, C. and Yu, D. (1998). Management of populations in conservation, harvesting and control. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 13:371-375.
  20. Moore, J.L., S.M. Howden, G.M. McKeon, J.O. Carter and J.C. Scanlan (1997). A method to evaluate greenhouse gas emissions from sheep grazed rangelands in south west Queensland. In Modsim 97 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation Proc, pp. 137-142. December 8-11, Hobart. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia, Canberra.

 

I have also provided anonymous scientific reviews for the Australian Journal of Ecology, Biological Reviews, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Ecology Letters, Environmental Conservation, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Environmental Management and Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B.

 

Collaborators

 

Willow control on the Bogong High Plains

Mick McCarthy, Brendan Wintle, AEDA, University of Melbourne

Mark Burgman, ACERA, University of Melbourne

Elaine Thomas, Charlie Pascoe, Marie Keatley , Parks Victoria

Project advisory group

Stefan Kaiser, DSE, Wangaratta

Veronica Lanigan, Andrew Briggs, North East CMA

Sarah Holland-Clift, National Willows Taskforce

Arn Tolsma, DSE, Arthur Rylah Institute

 

 

Quarantine or Surveillance?

Tracy Rout AEDA, University of Melbourne

Cindy Hauser, Jan Carey, ACERA, University of Melbourne

Chris Wilcox, CSIRO Atmospheric and Marine, Tasmania

Dorian Moro, Chevron Australia Pty Ltd

Menna Jones, University of Tasmania &DPIW Tasmania

Clare Hawkins, DPIW, Tasmania

Yakhov Ben-Haim, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Hugh Possingham, AEDA, University of Queensland