Professor Alan Baker

Research Interests

• Uptake, accumulation and tolerance to heavy metals by terrestrial plants.
• Ecology of ultramafic (serpentine) environments
• Restoration ecology and revegetation of mining lands
• Development of phytoremediation technology for use in soil and sediment clean-up.
• Phytomining

Research Group

Applied Ecology
www.phytoremediation.com.au

Selected Recent Publications

Angle, J.S. A.J.M. Baker, S.N. Whiting and R.L. Chaney. 2003.  Soil moisture effects on uptake of heavy metals by Thlaspi, Alyssum and Berkheya. Plant and Soil 256: 325-332.

Bhatia, N.P., I. Orlic, R. Siegele, N. Ashwath, A.J.M. Baker and K. Walsh. 2003. Elemental mapping using PIXE shows the main pathway of nickel movement is principally symplastic within the fruit of the hyperaccumulator Stackhousia tryonii. New Phytologist 160: 479-488.

Whiting, S.N., R D. Reeves, D. Richards, M.S. Johnson, J.A. Cooke, F. Malaisse, A. Paton, J.A.C. Smith, J. S. Angle, R.L. Chaney, R. Ginocchio, T. Jaffré, R. Johns, T. McIntyre, O.W. Purvis,  D.E. Salt, H. Schat, F.J. Zhao and  A.J.M. Baker. 2004.  Research priorities for conservation of metallophytes and their potential for restoration and site remediation.  Restoration Ecology 12: 107-117.

Bhatia, N.P., I. Orlic, R. Siegele, N. Ashwath, A.J.M. Baker and K. Walsh. 2004.  Quantitative cellular localization of nickel in leaves and stem of the hyperaccumulator plant Stackhousia tryonii Bailey using nuclear-microprobe (Micro-PIXE) and energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDXMA) techniques. Functional Plant Biology 31: 1-14.

Bhatia, N.P., K.B. Walsh and  A.J.M. Baker. 2005.  Detection and quantification of ligands involved in nickel detoxification in an herbaceous Ni hyperaccumulator, Stackhousia tryonii Bailey.  Journal of Experimental Botany 56: 1343-1349

Quartacci, M.F., A.J.M. Baker and F. Navari-Izzo. 2005. Nitriloacetate- and citric acid-assisted phytoextraction of cadmium by Indian mustard (Brassica juncea (L.) Czernj, Brassicaceae).  Chemosphere 59: 1249-1255.

Comino E., S.N. Whiting, P.M. Neumann and A.J.M. Baker. 2005.  Salt (NaCl) tolerance in the Ni hyperaccumulator Alyssum murale and the Zn hyperaccumulator Thlaspi caerulescens.  Plant and Soil 270: 91-99.