Ashleigh Ford

I completed my undergraduate degree at UNSW, majoring in Ecology and English literature. After completing Honours research in post-fire sclerophyll forest, I worked in subtropical rainforest systems as a lab manager at the University of Queensland before returning to UNSW to undertake a PhD.

Project: Exploring the Dendroecological potential of Mulga

Supervised by: Daniel Falster, Mike Letnic, Heather Haines

Project Description: Tree rings tell us about a species' ecology and broader environmental history by capturing the conditions trees experience throughout their growth. However, Australian dendrochronology (the study of tree rings) has long been limited to environments and species in which rings are presumed to be annual. As such, empirical and long-term growth data is unavailable for many Australian species. By supplementing traditional dendrochronological methods with radiocarbon dating, I will be using dendrochronology to better understand the age, growth and ecology of Mulga- an important semi-arid tree species.