Deputy Head of School
PhD (Tas)
| Contact Campus | Sandy Bay Campus |
| Building | Life Sciences Building |
| Room Reference | 372g |
| Telephone | +61 3 6226 7874 |
| Fax | +61 3 6226 2698 |
| Mark.Hovenden@utas.edu.au |
I teach plant structure and function (physiology) in the 2nd year Botany course and plant ecology in 2nd and 3rd year.
I began my interest in botany as a child on caravanning holidays with my family in the bush across eastern Australia. I studied botany at the University of Sydney, studying fire ecology and later spending two years as a research assistant working on mangroves. I then moved to Tasmania in 1991 to work at the Australian Antarctic Division as a research scientist investigating terrestrial ecology of lichens of the Windmill Islands, near Casey Station, for which work I received my PhD from the University of Tasmania in 1996. I then spent a year working on low temperature effects on eucalypts at the Terrestrial Hardwood Forestry CRC in Hobart before returning to the School of Plant Science as an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow working on the impacts of climate on leaf form and growth of the southern beech, Nothofagus cunninghamii. I commenced my work as a lecturer in the School of Plant Science in 1998, teaching Plant Structure and Function and Plant Ecology.
My main interest is in improving our understanding of ecological processes. In particular, how various plant strategies affect the way species interact and how this translates into ecosystem processes. My major projects focus on the functional response of various species to global climate change and how physiological responses lead to population, community and ecosystem changes. I am also working on how certain ecophysiological strategies allow invasive plant species to be so successful.
Students working with me are currently looking at functional ecology of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic plants, alpine revegetation, nutrient use in plantations, ecophysiology of the Proteaceae, trigger...
I am the chief investigator and was responsible for the establishment of TasFACE (Free Air CO2 Enrichment Facility) experiment. TasFACE is a state of the art facility for investigating the impact of global climate change on an intact native grassland at Pontville, just north of Hobart. The experiment investigates the way that increasing temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations affect the growth and nature of an ecosystem important from both an agricultural and conservation point of view.
Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) facility: University of Tasmania Climate Change Facility.
Research Project/s