Brisbane is a place where parrots, cockatoos, and other exotic birds fly free, where kangaroos roam the hillsides, and where plants that live on window sills in the U.S. grow in yards and surrounding forests. In March, this subtropical city became home to 23 HWS students, who travelled there to study ecology, biodiversity, and statistics at the University of Queensland.
The new program, led by Kevin Mitchell, HWS professor of mathematics and computer science, and U of Q faculty members Ian Tibbetts, marine zoologist, and David Yates, botanist, offered HWS science students an integrated, hands-on approach to the study of biology and mathematics. Week-long fieldtrips took them to a barrier island, to temperate and subtropical rainforests, to an island on the Great Barrier Reef, and to an arid region on the edge of the Outback to apply research methods learned in class to the study of Australian flora and fauna.
This sample of what they discovered in their travels attempts to illustrate what a truly extraordinary experience they shared.
A pair of kookaburras at a feeder at Point Lookout.
Over the past 30 years, the island's sediments have been systematically reworked by mining companies that extract relatively precious minerals, such as rutile, zircon, and ilmenite, from the primarily silicon sands. After mining, stockpiled topsoil, nursery-grown native flora and the silicon tailings are used to restore the dunes to their original condition. A visit to several rehabilitated sites --- some successful, some not --- provided students a realistic view of the success of such operations and demonstrate how ecological insights gained through careful research have enhanced dune rehabilitation efforts.
Studies of marine organisms in the intertidal zone showed how the distribution of species changes in the region between low- and high-tide lines. A data-collection exercise at Brown Lake, illustrated the successional stages in fire-adapted forest.
Heather Conn '96 gets a closer look at a rock pool in the intertidal zone on North Stradbroke.
John Muhlfeld '95, Julie Zelazny '96, and Kjerstin Todd '95 gathering data at Brown Lake using a point-transect method.
Day and night trawling in Moreton Bay allowed students to compare species' richness and diversity at different times of the day. This hands-on exercise also gave them a close look at the sea creatures that inhabit these waters. There's a lot to be learned about fish morphology by actually sticking one's finger into the mouths of various fish, noted program director, Kevin Mitchell, professor of mathematics and computer science.
Majestic Antarctic Beeches in the mist at Lamington.
As the plateau descends to the north, warmer, drier conditions support a luxuriant sub-tropical rainforest. Here, the towering canopy is comprised of mixed stands of strangler figs, gympie stinging trees, eucalypts, booyongs, and an occasional hoop pine. In the humid shade beneath the canopy, sturdy branches and tree trunks host a diverse array of orchids and ferns.
A magnificent hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) on the trail near Duck Creek.
On the forest floor, a complex community of ferns, sedges, saplings, mosses, fungi, vines, and more compete for space, water, nutrients and light. An explosion of growth occurs wherever a stream, a trail, or a fallen tree provides an extra measure of light.
Here tree ferns flourish in a small break in the canopy.
Students spent much of their time at Lamington familiarizing themselves with the unusual flora and fauna in this place where the only familiar specimens are the epiphytic ferns that grow on window sills back home. Guided walks through the forest at night provided a chance to observe the habits of ring-tailed and bushy-tailed possums and to see a natural light show as a community of tiny glow worms cloaked a rocky cliff face with their eerie green luminescence.
A "bird's nest" fern growing on a host tree.
Forays through the forest at different times of day demonstrated that, cruel as it may seem, dawn is the best time to observe the forest's winged creatures, unless, of course, one's interest is bats, moths, or owls. A field exercise conducted in a torrential downpour illustrated the successional growth stages of forests (as well as the students' resilience) and provided data for comparison with data collected at Stradbroke Island's Brown Lake site.
The "Coral Gardens" were a favorite snorkeling spot beyond the reef crest.
Emerging from subterranean chambers in the island's sand, the clumsy offspring of green sea turtles make their inaugural march to the sea, where they join the complex community that inhabits the reef's underwater garden. The coral's irregular geometry and nutrient-rich waters that surround it feed and shelter a startling array of marine life, so diverse that in a week's time it is impossible to see it all.
Corals and clams in competition for space. Symbiotic zooxanthellae give both the coral and the mantle of the clam their colors.
Individual projects encouraged students to apply their knowledge of statistical sampling methods to a topic of particular interest to them, leaving them ample time to explore the reef's diverse habitat. A guided walk around the island with Ian Tibbetts, a marine zoologist at the University of Queensland, tested their ability to apply concepts learned at Stradbroke. Close encounters with sharks, rays, sea cucumbers, starfish, sea urchins, sea turtles and hundreds of species of fish left the group with memories that no one's underwater photographs managed to capture, but few will soon forget.
A slate pencil urchin (Heterocentrotus mammillatus) with its large flattened spines hides in the reef flat.
This sparsely settled area of Australia, once inhabited by Aboriginal tribes, is now dominated by cattle ranchers. Grazing areas of 25,000 acres or more, delineated by miles of fence, divide the dry, unfertile ground into immense pastures.
The low bush country near Battleship Spur in Carnarvon National Park is typical of the land now used for grazing in this region of Australia.
Rivers that now run only when rain falls have carved a landscape of broadly undulating hills. Deep gorges, rimmed with steep cliffs of white sandstone, disappear into the depths of their canyons as they snake through the park's wooded terrain. A two-day hike through the bush, guided by Lloyd Hancock and Raymond Duffy, local graziers who also run the education center, introduced the group to local ecology, geology, and aboriginal history en route to a spectacular view of the park's main gorge. Simple meals, songs and stories around the campfire, and waking up with frost on their sleeping bags acquainted the students with a few of the realities of a grazier's life.
Lloyd Hancock lectures on local ecology while taking a break along the trail near Saddler Springs.
Two days in the Mt. Moffatt section of the park offered further insights into the Aboriginal use of the land. A visit to The Tombs, an initiation and burial site where fine examples of Aboriginal stencil art are preserved on sandstone outcrops, provided an opportunity to consider how the arrival of the white man has disrupted the religious traditions of Australia's native people.
Park Ranger Gavin Enevra discusses land use and religious customs of the Aboriginal Tribes with HWS students at The Tombs.
Little is known of the Aboriginal people who inhabited this area of Australia for 20,000 years. Stencil art, preserved on walls of abandoned burial grounds, depicts hands, spears, kangaroos, trading shells, and in one rare case, the outline of an entire human body.
