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Sugden Society Presentation (via Webinar)
Via ZOOM 11AM – 12PM
Australian Deserts: Ecology and Landscapes
It is about the vast sweep of the Outback, a land of expanses making up three-quarters of the continent – the heart of Australia. It aims to explain in plain language how arid Australia works ecologically, why the place looks and feels like it does. It celebrates a region not always at the forefront of thinking in our society and honours its toughness and beauty, through accounts of my own experience and through Mike Gillam’s wonderful photographs.Unpredictable rainfall and paucity of soil nutrients underpin the nature of desert ecosystems. The book shows how plants use uncertain rainfall to provide for their persistence, alongside outlines of the dominant animals of the deserts and explanations of the features that help them succeed in the face of aridity, uncertainty and infertility.
Australian Deserts: Ecology and Landscapes was awarded the Whitley Medal for 2022, named in honour of Gilbert Whitley, an eminent former Curator at the Australian Museum. It is available through CSIRO Publishing at https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7568/
Dr Steve Morton is an Honorary Professorial Fellow with Charles Darwin University in Alice Springs. He studied at the Universities of Melbourne, California at Irvine and Sydney. In 1984 he joined CSIRO in Alice Springs to work in the desert environment that has long been his focus and passion. From 2000 until 2010, based in Canberra and Melbourne, he was a Chief of Division and Executive Team member at CSIRO.
In 2011 he returned to live in Alice Springs, from where he serves on a variety of boards and committees relating to environmental science and natural resource management. Steve is a Wyvern and a Fellow of Queen’s College.