Doctor Andrew Irving School of Medical & Applied Sciences

BACKGROUND

I am an ecologist primarily interested in the dynamics of marine habitats and their inhabitants.  To date, my research has focused on the mechanisms of establishment, loss, and recovery of marine plants (e.g. seagrass meadows, kelp forests, salt marshes), as well as their role as habitat for fish, invertebrates, and other plants.  A key interest lies in the response of marine communities to natural and anthropogenic disturbances, and identifying ways to rehabilitate degraded marine ecosystems more effectively.  I am particularly interested in facilitative interactions in marine systems, since these offer promising pathways to accelerate environmental remediation.

To date, my work has primarily focused on temperate marine rocky reef and seagrass communities, although I have also worked on coral reefs, salt marshes, intertidal shores, and soft sediments. I apply mensurative techniques, manipulative experiments, and advanced statistical analyses to address critical questions about the ecology of marine habitats, how they are disrupted by human activities, and how they may best be rehabilitated to improve ecosystem function. Additionally, I have actively sought national and international research opportunities to gain a macro-scale perspective on the systems in which I work, and to facilitate clearer assessments of local-scale variation in patterns and processes within a broader biogeographic context.  Using this approach, I have been fortunate to explore some incredible places around the world, including Antarctica and the Galapagos Archipelago.

I have been directly involved with numerous consulting projects since 2008, such as the development of a new method for quantifying seagrass habitat structure (EPA), mapping wastewater footprints along the Adelaide coastline (SA Water), as well as monitoring subtidal baseline conditions for the Adelaide desalination plant at Port Stanvac (Adelaide Aqua) and acting as a technical reviewer of the EIS (SARDI Aquatic Sciences).  

As a university lecturer/researcher I have co-ordinated and taught multiple courses at the University of Adelaide, Brown University (USA), and the University of Bologna (Italy), while also supervising Honours and PhD students.  I am a recent addition to the faculty at CQU and I look forward to exploring the natural history of this spectacular coastline!

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

2005 - PhD in Marine Ecology, Thesis title: Patterns and responses of benthos to habitat heterogeneity in algal forests of Australasia, Southern Seas Ecology Laboratories, University of Adelaide

2000 - First Class Honours (Bachelor of Sciecne), Thesis title: The interactive effects of light and sediment on subtidal epibiota, Southern Seas Ecology Laboratories, University of Adelaide

1999 - Bachelor of Science (Marine and Environmental Biology), Flinders University

CORE COMPETENCIES

·        Design, analysis, and interpretation of complex multifactorial and multivariate ecological experiments

·         Teaching basic to high-level concepts and applications in plant and animal biology, ecology, environmental science, experimental design, and statistical analyses.

·         High-level univariate and multivariate statistics for detecting ecological patterns and environmental impacts

·         Principles and practices of environmental monitoring of natural habitats and inhabitants, including baseline, impact, and recovery surveys

·         Development of marine remediation strategies and tools, including restoration and calculating carbon offsets

·         Biodiversity estimates, including assemblages, diversity, and abundance in a range of habitats

·         Reconciling variation in local-scale patterns and processes with their broader biogeographical context

·         Boat operator and ADAS Commercial SCUBA diver (restricted level 2)

CURRENT TEACHING AT CQU

BIOL11099 - Living Systems

BIOL12107 - Genomes, Genetics and Evolution

MARN13007 - Coastal Marine Resources

SCIE11024 - Science Investigation (course co-ordinator)

ZOOL12009 - Invertebrate Zoology (course co-ordinator)

ZOOL19004 - Insect Pest Management (course co-ordinator)

Irving AD, Tanner JE & Collings GJ (in press 8-Mar-2013).  Rehabilitating seagrass by facilitating recruitment: improving chances for success.  Restoration Ecology

Burnell OW, Russell BD, Irving AD & Connell SD (in press 4-Mar-2013).  Eutrophication offsets increased sea urchin grazing on seagrass caused by ocean warming and acidification.  Marine Ecology Progress Series

Irving AD (in press 2013). Seagrasses of Spencer Gulf. In: Natural History of Spencer Gulf.  SA Shepherd et al (eds), Royal Society press

Anthropogenic impacts and Restoration

Irving AD (2013).  A century of failure for habitat recovery.  Ecography 36: 414-416

Irving AD, Connell SD & Russell BD (2011).  Restoring coastal plants to improve global carbon storage: Reaping what we sow.  PLoS One 6: e18311

Irving AD, Tanner JE, Seddon S, Miller D, Collings GJ, Wear RJ, Hoare SL & Theil MJ (2010).  Testing alternate ecological approaches to seagrass rehabilitation: links to life-history traits.  Journal of Applied Ecology 47: 1119-1127

Irving AD & Connell SD (2002). Sedimentation and light penetration interact to maintain alternate states of subtidal epibiota: algal vs invertebrate dominated assemblages. Marine Ecology Progress Series 245: 83-91

Irving AD & Connell SD (2002). Interactive effects of sedimentation and microtopography on the abundance of subtidal turf-forming algae. Phycologia 41: 517-522

Habitat ecology

Connell SD, Russell BD & Irving AD (2011).  Can strong consumer and producer effects be reconciled to better forecast ‘catastrophic’ phase-shifts in marine ecosystems?  Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 400: 296-301

Irving AD, Balata D, Colosio F, Ferrando GA & Airoldi L (2009).  Light, sediment, temperature, and the early life-history of the habitat-forming alga Cystoseira barbata. Marine Biology 156: 1223-1231

Irving AD & Witman JD (2009).  Positive effects of damselfish override negative effects of urchins to prevent an algal habitat switch.  Journal of Ecology 97: 337-347

Johnston EL, Connell SD, Irving AD, Pile AJ & Gillanders BM (2007). Antarctic patterns of shallow subtidal habitat and inhabitants in Wilke’s Land. Polar Biology 30: 781-788

Irving AD, Tanner JE & McDonald BK (2007). Priority effects on faunal assemblages within artificial seagrass. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 340: 40-49

Irving AD & Connell SD (2006). Physical disturbance by kelp abrades erect algae from the understorey. Marine Ecology Progress Series 324: 127-137

Irving AD & Connell SD (2006). Predicting understorey structure from the presence and composition of canopies: an assembly rule for marine algae. Oecologia 148: 491-502

Irving AD, Fowler-Walker MJ and Connell SD (2003). Associations of forest-type with morphology of Ecklonia radiata and abundance of understorey algae. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 127: 167-175

Facilitation

Irving AD & Bertness MD (2009).  Trait-dependent modification of facilitation on cobble beaches.  Ecology 90: 3042-3050

Goldenheim WM, Irving AD & Bertness MD (2008).  Switching from negative to positive density-dependence among populations of a cobble beach plant. Oecologia 158: 473-483

Grutter A & Irving AD (2007). Positive interactions in marine communities. In: Marine Ecology. SD Connell and BM Gillanders (eds), Oxford University Press, pp. 110-137

Irving AD, Connell SD & Elsdon TS (2004). Effects of kelp canopies on bleaching and photosynthetic activity of encrusting coralline algae. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 310: 1-12

Biogeography

Connell SD & Irving AD (2009). The subtidal ecology of Australia’s rocky coast: local – regional patterns and their experimental analysis. In: Marine Macroecology. JD Witman and K Roy (eds), Chicago University Press, pp. 392-417

Connell SD & Irving AD (2008).  Integrating ecology with biogeography using landscape characteristics: a case study of subtidal habitat across continental Australia.  Journal of Biogeography 35: 1608-1621

Irving AD, Connell SD, Johnston EL, Pile AJ & Gillanders BM (2005). The response of encrusting coralline algae to canopy loss: an independent test of predictions on an Antarctic coast. Marine Biology 147: 1075-1083

Fowler-Walker MJ, Gillanders BM, Connell SD & Irving, AD (2005).  Patterns of association between canopy-morphology and understorey assemblages across temperate Australia. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 63: 133-141

Irving AD, Connell SD & Gillanders BM (2004). Local patterns of canopy-benthos associations generate regional patterns across temperate Australasia. Marine Biology 144: 361-368

Methodology

Irving AD, Tanner JE & Gaylard SG (2013).  An integrative method for the evaluation, monitoring, and comparison of seagrass habitat structure.  Marine Pollution Bulletin 66: 176-184

Fernandes M, Benger S, Sharma SK, Gaylard S, Kildea T, Hoare S, Braley M & Irving AD (2012).  The use of δ¹⁵N signatures of translocated macroalgae to map coastal nutrient plumes: improving species selection and spatial analysis of metropolitan datasets.  Journal of Environmental Monitoring 14: 2399-2410