Biodiversity – Management and Impacts. Hunter Perspectives.

HEI’s next seminar will focus on two ecological topics, a discussion of the NSW Framework for Biodiversity Assessment be followed by a real world example of the impact of climate change on amphibian species.

John Seidel is a Principal Project Officer for the Office of Environment and Heritage (since 2007). John has played a lead role in the design and implementation of new and innovative approaches to biodiversity assessment and offsetting through the implementation of programs such as Biodiversity Banking Offsets Scheme, Biodiversity Certification and the draft NSW Offsets Policy for major projects.He will look inside the NSW Framework for Biodiversity Assessment for us.

The second seminar is: ”Sentinels of climate change impact: studies of ecophysiology and reproductive phenology in amphibians from mountain rainforest habitats.” Is to be presented by Michael Mahony and Bede Moses from the University of Newcastle.

Bede Moses completed his Bachelor of Science (major in Biology) degree at
Newcastle University in 2013. He completed a double major with a strong interest in ecology and geology courses. This combination proved to be valuable in his honours year project where he considered the implication of climate warming predictions on some selected animals. With a strong background in the geological perspective of past climate change and its broader environmental impacts he combined a modelling approach to climate change with a series of direct physiological measurement for a postulated sensitive species.

Michael Mahony is a teacher and conservation biologist with a long term interest in the volutionary ecology of amphibians. In recent years his work, and those of most of his students, have focused on the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis that caused the extinction of seven Australian frog species and the decline of about 30 more, and internationally has led to the extinction of over 120 species .  He was the first to identify that the cause of amphibian declines was a disease. In recent years the challenge has been to develop means to secure populations of susceptible species from this disease, and that has meant spending a considerable time with the green and golden bell frog. He has held appointments to the  NSW NPWS Advisory Council and the  Sceintific Advisory Committeed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area, and was the head of the disciplines of Biological Sciences and Environmental Science and Management  at Newcastle University for eight years. In 2013 research on de-extinction conducted by a small team in his laboratory was listed by Time magazine among the top 25 inventions of the year, and was the only Australian invention to make the list.