An ability to read and understand the landscape is integral to understanding ecology and is an important precursor to the conservation and sustainable management of forests, woodlands and farmland. As a southern hemisphere continent that has been geologically stable for millennia, Australia has developed a unique combination of landforms, regolith, soils and vegetation. The factors important to the evolution of the Australian landscape and the processes by which these form a sustainable and regenerative system are the focus of this course.

Geological, geomorphological, ecological and biogeochemical processes form the basis of an analysis of how vegetation communities, landforms and the mantle of regolith and soils form across the landscape. The roles of biota, disturbance and competition are integral to this analysis. Soils cannot form in the absence of biota, particularly vegetation, and of course, vegetation does not exist in nature without soils, leading to parallel evolution.

Modules include: the reproductive biology and growth habits of eucalypts (as an example of vegetation); eucalypt biogeography and adaptation to Australian environmental conditions; the weathering of underlying geology; erosion and deposition of materials in the terrestrial landscape; the development of the regolith mantle, and ultimately the formation of soils on the surface.

This is a hands-on course with a substantial practical component. Students reinforce and extend concepts presented in lectures through a coordinated set of field exercises located in Canberra Nature Parks, Namadgi National Park, the ANU Kioloa field station and the Murramarang National Park. Students apply their knowledge in a major project to collect data across a landscape and synthesise the results in a model explaining the distribution of vegetation and soils at a range of scales.

Note: Graduate students attend joint classes with undergraduates but are assessed separately.