Melbourne School of Land and Environment Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science

I studied Applied Science at the University of Ballarat, majoring in Natural Resource Management. On completion I spent a rewarding 6 months at Birds Australia’s Eyre Bird Observatory as a warden, doing bird survey and banding as well as running the Observatory. In 1989 I joined the then Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands as a Technical Assistant. Over the years I have been involved in both native forest and plantation silviculture, seed germination research, fuel reduction burning and fire ecology. Some time was also spent on secondment with the Ballarat Flora and Fauna section of DSE working on threatened species, land use planning and Land for Wildlife. After many name and job changes the Centre for Forest Tree Technology was incorporated into the University of Melbourne where I became part of the Fire Ecology Group in 2004.

• Fire and biodiversity, better understanding of the role fire plays in the maintenance of biodiversity in the environment. Aspects of interest include the maintenance of landscape scale mosaics, and the vital attributes of both flora and fauna species.
• Forest dynamics, especially the role of phenology, seed production and forest seed stores in forest sustainability.
• How birds, mammals and reptiles respond to fire, and how they adapt to a changing environment. 

Current Projects

Determining appropriate ecological fire regimes to manage biodiversity in the heathy woodlands of southwest Victoria

I am primarily involved in this multi-disciplinary Department of Sustainability and Environment, Parks Victoria and Bushfire CRC project, This integrated research project aims to provide science-based ecological burning strategies which achieve both biodiversity and asset protection objectives at a landscape-scale. This includes gaining knowledge about vital attributes of animal and invertebrate, determining key fire-response species and their relationship to fire cycles and understanding the influence of fire on ecological processes. Such data are lacking for the heathy Stringybark woodlands of southwest Victoria and a series of projects are being undertaken to help address this knowledge gap.

Sub projects I am involved with are:

• The response of invertebrate and small mammal communities and habitats to varying fire regimes with particular focus on time since last fire and fire frequency.

• My current focus is the project ‘Diet analysis of three species of small mammals in relation to time since last fire’. The animal species are Silky Mouse (Psuedomys apodemoides), the endangered Heath Mouse (P.shortridgi) and the Yellow-footed Antechinus (Antechinus flavipes). Scat samples were collected and are being analysed for diet composition, to determine the differences in diet between the three species of mammal and the different fire histories.

Past research projects include:

• Plantation and native forest silviculture
• The Wombat Fire Effects study and other fire ecology work
• Tree ring growth assessments of the effectiveness of the shelterwood harvesting system
• Seed germination testing for forest regeneration
• Investigations into more effective adhesives for sticky seed traps.
• Seed crop management of Eucalyptus globulus - Development of seed crops and their readiness to harvest
• Investigating the phenology and seed crop development of Eucalyptus obliqua (Messmate stringybark), to enable better management of seed harvesting and forest regeneration works.
• Investigating population genetics of Eucalyptus regnans (Mountain Ash) using microsatellite markers

Ashton, A. (2004) Germinative energy of Eucalyptus obliqua seed. Research Report No. 389, Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Sasse, J., Lavery, M., O'Sullivan, H., Ashton, A., and Hamilton, M. (2003) Seed crop management of Eucalyptus globulus - Development of seed crops and their readiness to harvest in individual trees. IN Turnbull, J.W., ed., Eucalypts in Asia. Proceedings of an international conference held in Zhanjiang, Guandong, People's Republic of China, 7-11 April 2003. ACIAR Proceedings No. 111, pp126-132.

Ashton, A. (2002) Investigations into more effective adhesives for sticky seed traps. Research Report No. 385, Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Ashton, A., Roberts, B. and Kelly, N. (2002) Germinative energy of Eucalyptus regnans seed. Research Report No. 386, Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Ashton, A.K., and Morcom, L. (2000). Action Statement for Swollen Swamp Wallaby Grass (Amphibromus pithogastrus).