Mr Mitchell Johnston1
1Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
As climate change continues to increase the threat of bushfires across south-eastern Australia, prescribed burning is becoming the primary management tool used to reduce fuel loads while simultaneously protecting important societal, economic, and environmental values. Gaining an understanding of the impacts of prescribed burn frequency to an ecosystem is essential if ecosystem resilience is to be maintained into the future. Current research has primarily focused on the threatened and functionally important plant communities, while little attention has been paid to the subterranean fungal communities which underpin many aspects of plant health and growth. Previous studies assessing the response of fungi to fire have been limited to field surveys and lab culture protocols. eDNA offers a solution to rapidly survey the response of fungi to fire across large areas, quickly filling the knowledge to inform policy and land management. This study has utilised soil eDNA to characterise the effects of prescribed burning to the soil fungal communities across a biodiversity hotspot in Victoria. The results from this study highlighted the resilience of the soil fungal communities to prescribed burning with non-significant compositional changes found across varying prescribed burn frequencies, informing management of the effectiveness of low intensity prescribed burning to preserve ecosystem stability. Furthermore, this study revealed the strengths and limitations of the use of eDNA for soil fungal surveys within Australia and calls for greater coverage of Australian taxa needed in current DNA reference libraries.
Biography:
My name is Mitchell Johnston and I am a PhD candidate from Deakin University. I am interested in exploring the interactions between plants and fungi across a range of fire effected landscapes using field and genetic techniques.