Ian Wright

I'm a plant ecologist in the Department of Biological Science at Macquarie University. In my research group we investigate the functional ecology and ecological strategies of plants – the “how and why” of differences among species in their structural, chemical and physiological traits – and the implications of this variation for larger-scale processes. For this we use a variety of approaches, ranging from fine-scale anatomical or physiological studies to global-scale analyses of trait variation. We run fieldwork in a variety of systems, from the wet tropics to temperate woodlands to the arid zone.

In current projects we also are studying biogeographic patterns in the Australian flora; developing a method for using hyperspectral data to monitor plant pathogens; and using fossil leaf cuticles to study ecosystem changes across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary event, a possible analogue for current day climate change.

We like to use a variety of approaches to ask all sorts of interesting ecological questions!