WELCOME to the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Forest Value’s first newsletter for 2020.
Our aim is to keep our affiliates informed of the exciting projects and research currently underway at the Centre, and to highlight some important milestones. One of our key goals is to produce industry ready graduates and researchers, and over the past four years we have seen our students excel in their research and make valuable connections and contributions within the forestry sector.
The Centre is proud to have such a strong calibre of talented PhD candidates and research fellows from all corners of the globe and the Centre is grateful to the partners and organisations committed to supporting and developing our candidates who help drive the Centre's research activity.
Congratulations to our first graduate, Dr Mohammad Derikvand, whose PhD identified practical methods for producing mass laminated timber from fibre-grown plantation Eucalyptus nitens for structural timber flooring systems in the built environment. Mohammad said the main highlight of his PhD journey was the high level of interaction with the Centre’s industry partners. You can read more about Mohammad’s journey below.
Another big congratulations to one of our PhD Candidates Sean Krisanski who recently received the 2020 Science and Innovation Award from the Australian Government’s, Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. This award will help Sean develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to make it possible to collect forest canopy samples more safely, at a lower cost and at a much larger scale than existing canopy sample collection techniques.
This Saturday 21 March is International Day of Forests, which is an important day to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all forest types. “Forests and Biodiversity: Too precious to lose” is this year’s theme and for the Centre’s PhD candidate Nicolò Camarretta it raises awareness on a topic he knows well.
Nicolò's recent paper published in Restoration Ecology, looked at the stability of species and provenance performance when translocated into different community assemblages. I encourage you to take a look at Nick’s paper.
This newsletter features many of the important projects currently underway at the Centre, as we progress through the first quarter of 2020 with a continued focus to build research capacity in the sector and celebrate our achievements and partnerships along the way. To find out more information on the Centre visit our website, click here.
Deputy Director Associate Professor Julianne O’Reilly-Wapstra
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Tasmania leaves lasting impression for PhD graduate
WHEN Mohammad Derikvand moved to Tasmania three years ago to complete his PhD, he didn’t expect the State to leave such a lasting impression.
Last year the Centre for Forest Value’s student celebrated completing his PhD project in optimising laminated high-mass timber components assembled from a fibre-grown resource for building applications. Thrilled to have completed his PhD at the University of Tasmania in less than three years, Mohammed said the project identified practical methods for producing mass laminated timber components from fibre-grown plantation Eucalyptus nitens.
He said the main highlight of his PhD journey was the high level of interaction with the Centre’s industry partners.
“In my job as a researcher, developing skills in communicating with the industry members in our field is a key to success,” he said.
“While progressing my study program at UTAS, I had the pleasure to work across several research projects with the centre’s industry collaborators and other Tasmanian wood products manufacturers including Forico Pty Limited, Forest and Wood Products Australia, Neville Smith Forest Products, Hydrowood, Britton Timbers, and the Ta Ann group.
“These projects mainly aimed to develop high-value sawn timber and engineered wood products from plantation-grown eucalypt timber.”
Director, Centre for Sustainable Architecture with Wood, and Theme Leader in the Centre for Forest Value, Professor Gregory Nolan said industry interest in processing the Tasmanian plantation hardwood resource had grown quickly in the last four years. Professor Nolan said hardwood is a key area for potential socio-economic benefits for additional processing in the state.
“Tasmania produced 3 million cubic metres of fibre-managed plantation fibre last year, while Australia as a whole harvested 10 million cubic metres. When Mohammad started his research there was very little interest in processing this material and in four years, interest has grown considerably,” Professor Nolan said.
“While the fibre-managed material is not a replacement for native forest logs, one area where it can be used is in manufacturing structural components for buildings. A key area in that are mass laminated panels where it can potentially compete against similar pine products. There is an enormous potential to make things suitable for large-scale buildings. This can generate real socio-economic benefits to Tasmania.”
Mohammad is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in Timber Engineering, at the Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, in Finland. Despite his current base in Finland, Mohammad said Tasmania and the University would always hold a special place in his heart.
“I have been to many different places, but Tasmania is something special. It feels like home. Tasmanians are very welcoming and kind people, and this had made my stay in Australia even more memorable,” he said.
“My lifestyle in Tasmania was unique, there was always something to do and enjoy outside. Especially when it comes to nature and the environment. I made lifelong friends and would take any good opportunity to return to Tasmania in the future. I would like to thank all my supervisors, colleagues, and good friends at the ARC CFV and Centre for Sustainable Architecture with Wood for their support and encouragement during my PhD studies. I am grateful of knowing and being in contact with so many bright people.”
“UTAS is a truly diverse University that provides a collaborative environment for academics, students, and industry owners in the region to communicate their research needs and share their knowledge and experiences,” he said.
To find out more about Mohammad’s PhD click here.
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Award to help drone project reach new heights
ONE of the Centre’s PhD Candidates Sean Krisanski, is one step closer to completing his innovative drone project, thanks to a Federal Government science and innovation award.
This award, from the Australian Government’s, Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment, will help Sean to develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or “drone” which will make it possible to collect forest canopy samples more safely, at a lower cost and at a much larger scale than existing canopy sample collection techniques. Sean said the award will support the much-needed technology to enable a wide variety of studies to occur and for the first time collect a large number of canopy samples.
“There are a few existing drone-based canopy sample collection solutions in the literature, however, I am hoping to create a simpler and lower cost solution than what has previously been demonstrated. I would also like to make the plans available to the public at the end of the project so that it can assist other scientists who need canopy/branch samples.” he said.
Sean said the other aspect of the award is to develop the capability to place a sensor module in the canopy of a tree as well as retrieve it using a drone.
“I am focusing on the ability to place and retrieve a sensor in this work, with the goal of providing a modular sensor package deployment system for forest research. Some example applications might involve placing a wildlife monitoring camera near a nest or placing microphones for bioacoustics research," he said.
The University of Tasmania student’s PhD research looks at the development of an autonomous unmanned aerial system for under-canopy mapping of forests, as well as extracting measurements from these maps using deep-learning techniques.
“So far the feedback on the project has been very positive. Workplace health and safety has been a common concern among forest workers where dense undergrowth and rough terrain can pose a trip/slip/fall hazard,” he said.
“By using under-canopy UAVs as an alternative to manual field measurement techniques, we can help avoid such issues by simply flying over them. If a forest is severely infested with blackberry undergrowth or similar, measurement may simply be avoided in that area altogether. This is where such a system might eventually serve as a useful tool in the forest researcher’s/worker’s tool kit.”
To find out more about Sean's award winning research check out this link.
Inspiring future generations with Our Daily Wood workshops
INSPIRING and educating future generations about a career in the forestry industry is Centre for Forest Value PhD student Michelle Balasso’s passion.
The Italian-born University of Tasmania student impressed attendees at last year’s two-day Forest Education Conference in Launceston, with her workshops titled “Our Daily Wood”, which were delivered to panels of researchers, teachers and industry representatives.
Michelle said the conference provided the opportunity to connect and collaborate with educators and forest industry professionals, and saw participants treated to a forest field day at the Hollybank Reserve.
She said the positive response to her workshops was overwhelming and as a result, Michelle will host another lecture and workshop with Launceston high school students next month, in collaboration with the Forest Education Foundation.
“It was amazing to meet and engage with so many educators, company representatives and academics and to share my knowledge and experience in the forestry and wood technologies sector,” Michelle said.
“The workshops gave teachers the chance to see what we do, how we use wood, why we should learn about it, and how to bring about the message to students, to stir up their interest in the sector. It also showed participants how a career in forestry is exciting and possible.”
Since 2017, Michelle has worked closely with Forico on her PhD project on the wood quality in fibre grown Eucalyptus nitens plantations, to support the use of plantation timber for multiple applications.
“The main challenge that I am aiming to address with my project is to improve the understanding of the quality of this timber at different stages in the wood production chain, so to support the creation of segregation systems and grading procedures purposely developed for pulpwood logs destined at different productive streams,” she said.
“One innovation that I have considered is the employment of non-destructive technologies for wood quality surveys and as support tools for the segregation procedure. Their main advantages rely on their cost-efficiency in terms of reliability, ease of the use and time employed to perform the test.
“Using a cascade-approach from trees to final application, I am mapping the important quality traits of trees and logs affecting the quality of the sawn products, to provide a clear contribution to enhance the uses of a precious natural resource as timber.”
To view Michelle’s latest video on her PhD click here.
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"FORESTS and Biodiversity: Too precious to lose” is this year’s International Day of Forests theme and for one of the Centre’s PhD candidate Nicolò Camarretta, it raises awareness on a topic he knows well.
Nicolò’s recent paper published in Restoration Ecology, looked at the stability of species and provenance performance when translocated into different community assemblages. He said species and provenance choice are major issues faced by forest restoration practitioners.
“Traditionally there has been a focus on using local seed sources, however this is often not possible when rebuilding locally extinct forest communities,” he said.
“With climate change there is an increasing emphasis on using species and provenances which may be non-local but predicted to be better adapted to future climates.
Working closely with Greening Australia and Sustainable Timber Tasmania, Nicolò said one such strategy is called climate adjusted provenancing, which involves enriching local seed sources with planting stock from provenances predicted to be better adapted to the modelled future climate of the planting site.
Nicolò said another factor are the interactions which may occur with neighbouring plants particularly as forest restoration projects are undertaken by different organisations and landowners. He said also targeted tree species may be planted into different types of restoration communities comprising different tree and understory species.
“We examined how the relative differences in species and provenance performance is affected by the composition of the community into which they are planted. If the relative performance is stable then generalised transfer guidelines will be able to be adopted,” he said.
“Here, the relative performance of 10 provenances from two eucalypt species (Eucalyptus pauciflora and E. tenuiramis [Tasmanian endemic]), as well as the relative performance of the species themselves, was assessed when grown under different mixtures of co-occurring species. We found that the co-planted community does not seem to impact decisions related to the moving of species and provenances in order to create resilient restoration plantings.”
Nicolò said the results suggested that the consequences of moving species and provenances upslope following climate adjusted provenancing, may be species-specific and require staggered movements in time to maximise planting success under current the climate.
The International Day of Forests will be recognised on Saturday, 21 March.
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Impressive research publications highlight talent
THE Centre's research program is structured into three themes that span the forest products supply chain.
There are currently 16 PhD candidates, three postdocs and numerous industry, academic, and affiliated researchers participating in the projects being undertaken by the Centre for Forest Value. The three themes include:
- Theme 1: Sustainable forest production and certification.
- Theme 2: Products and manufacturing.
- Theme 3: Supply chain integration and information management.
Some notable recent publications from these themes include:
- Mihai Neagoe published his conference proceeding on Modelling the supply chain impact of a digital terminal appointment systems parameters and user behaviours. A discrete event simulation approach. Mihai's paper was supported by Hans-Henrik Hvolby, Mohammad Sadegh Taskhiri and Paul Turner.
- Henry Nickolas produced a paper on Genetic correlations among pulpwood and solid-wood selection traits in Eucalyptus globulus. His paper was supported by fellow Centre colleagues Paul Tilyard, Peter Harrison, René Vaillancourt and Brad Potts, plus industry partners Dean Williams, of Sustainable Timber Tasmania, and Geoff Downes, of Forest Quality Pty Ltd.
- Mingxin Liu had his paper recently published, A practical guide to DNA metabarcoding for entomological ecologists. The paper was also compiled by Laurence Clarke, Susan Baker, Gregory Jordan and Christopher Burridge.
- Hans Ammitzboll's paper on Independent genetic control of drought resistance, recovery, and growth of Eucalyptus globulus seedlings was recently published as a journal, after its online debut last year. Contributors to the paper included colleagues Jules Freeman, René Vaillancourt, Brad Potts, Peter Harrison, Tim Brodribb and Frances Sussmilch.
Watch Mihai Neagoe describe his PhD research in the video below:
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Centre's students shine at ecological conference
THE Centre was well represented at the Ecological Society of Australia conference in Launceston last year.
The week-long conference focussed on "Ecology: science for practical solutions" and attracted more than 600 ecogologist. Several of the Centre's PhD Candidates presented at the conference, including Nicolò Camarretta who spoke on “Using Remote Sensing to Monitor the Development of Structural Attributes in Restoration Plantings”.
Rose Brinkhoff presented a poster “The Determinants of Optimal Leaf Area in Eucalypt Plantations”. Affiliated researchers Dr Tanya Bailey and Dr Sue Baker also gave talks as well as PhD students Hans Ammitzboll, Travis Britton and Mingxin Liu. For more on the ESA conference continue to read below.
Zara claims outstanding student speed talk award
BEING able to clearly communicate your research in a short amount of time, is no easy feat for some.
But for one of the Centre’s PhD Candidate’s Zara Marais, her quick, articulate presentations earned her the 2019 Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) Wiley Student Prize for ‘Outstanding Student Speed Talk’ last year. For Zara, the platform was ideal. She was able to discuss some of the big issues facing today’s world with more than 600 ecologists at the ESA Conference in Launceston for the week.
“It was wonderful to be recognised by the ESA, and it was a big surprise as I thought that the overall quality of presentations at the conference was very high,” Zara said.
“My talk was called ‘Using natural capital accounting to build a business case for trees on farms’ and it was part of the symposium on ‘integrated landscape management in the Tasmanian midlands’. Other speakers in this session included landholders, restoration experts, ecologists and other researchers who base their work in the Tasmanian midlands.”
On track to submit her PhD at the end of the year, Zara’s thesis looks at the business case for trees on farms. Using developed models, Zara’s project will assess how the benefits of trees on farms varies between planting for timber production and native forests established for restoration/ecosystem services.
To find out more about Zara’s project click here.
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The ARC Training Centre for Forest Value (CFV) produces industry-ready graduates and postdoctoral fellows with broad perspectives of the forest industry.
The CFV is funded by the Australian Research Council and industry partners.