Monthly talk and End of Year Celebration – 2023
About this event
As the festive season approaches, the RSWA would like to invite you to the End of Year monthly talk, which will held at the UWA Club, with free drinks and nibbles afterwards.
Professor Stephen D. Hopper will be giving a presentation entitled: “Worlds apart – Darwin’s Orchid Bank, UK, compared with Gingin Cemetery, Western Australia, in the context of Ocbil theory”
Authors: Stephen D. Hopper, Michael Fay, Mark Chase, Allan H. Burbidge, + others
Abstract
This seminar investigates Darwin’s Orchid Bank and Gingin Cemetery as exemplars of young versus old landscapes in the context of predictions made about biological and cultural trends within Ocbil Theory. Old, climatically buffered infertile landscapes (Ocbils) are found predominantly in the Southern Hemisphere. They are characterised by ancient landscapes predating the end of the Pliocene, which have been relatively climatically buffered due to prolonged oceanic influence, and which are generally infertile, with P being the major limiting nutrient. In contract, Yodfels are young landscapes postdating the end of the Pliocene, often disturbed by a range of processes at relatively high frequency, and that have fertile soils with N as the limiting nutrient. Darwin’s Orchid Bank is a classic Yodfel, while Gingin Cemetery is an Ocbil that became regularly disturbed only since settlement by white colonists. We sampled the flora at the two sites, documenting the proportion of native v/s exotic plant species. We recorded dispersal abilities. We used DNA sequencing to explore phylogenetics and endemism. And we investigated the two areas in the context of all of the 12 biocultural and 12 conservation management hypotheses developed for Ocbils since the foundational paper was published in 2009.
Darwin’s Orchid Bank conforms to predictions for Yodfels, and Gingin Cemetery for Ocbils, by and large. This finding conforms to a growing literature suggesting merit in Ocbil theory for conservation management and for further development of ecological, evolutionary and anthropological theory.
Bibliography
Professor Stephen D. Hopper AC has served as Director (CEO and Chief Scientist) of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew London (2006-2012), and as Director (CEO) of Kings Park and Botanic Garden (1992-2004) in Perth, Western Australia. He has been involved in flora conservation research and academic teaching in conservation biology at The University of Western Australia, from which he graduated BSc (Hons) in 1974, PhD in 1980, and Honorary DSc in 2010. Also he was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Sussex in 2012. In June 2012 he was awarded Australia’s highest civilian honour of Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), for ’eminent service as a global science leader in the field of plant conservation biology, particularly in the delivery of world class research programs contributing to the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems’. In October 2012 he was inducted into the Western Australian Science Hall of Fame for recognition as ‘an internationally acclaimed plant conservation biologist who has made an outstanding contribution to biodiversity preservation in Western Australia’.
Currently, he works as Professor of Biodiversity at The University of Western Australia, Albany campus. Professor Hopper investigates the ecological, evolutionary, conservation and sustainability aspects of biodiversity on old, climatically buffered infertile landscapes (Ocbils). He has a special focus on plants of granite rock outcrops, and on the Haemodoraceae, eucalypts and orchids. Now, he also leads a small team researching links between Aboriginal and scientific knowledge systems of biodiversity with Noongar Aboriginal Elders.