Honours projects
The Department of Botany welcomes enquiries from third year students about Honours and Postgraduate Diploma courses for 2013. These courses are run over a nine month period, either from early February to late October (1st semester start), or late July to mid April of the following year (2nd semester start). There is a course work component, and students also complete a major research project under the direction of a supervisor in a specialist area.
Students can obtain a booklet with more information about the following projects from the foyer of the Department of Botany. Before applying for Honours they should first contact their potential supervisor to discuss their suitability for the project in which they are interested.
2013 Honours projects
Dr Trevor Edwards
- The reproductive biology of naturalised Iridaceae in Victoria - How do various propagules drive the invasion process?
- Vertebrate pollination syndromes in eastern Australia.
- Visual cues in pollinator behaviour – How does spectrometry assist our interpretation of flower/pollinator interactions?
Dr Anthony Gendall
- Characterisation of the novel flowering time gene FLH in Arabidopsis.
- Patterns of NHX gene loss and retention in angiosperms.
- Identification of subcellular localisation signals.
Dr Peter Green
- Is allelopathy a ‘novel weapon’ in alien plant invasion?
Dr Susan Hoebee
- The reproductive biology of Grevillea: potential and realised mating systems.
- Sex in Sagittaria: selfing, outcrossing and pollen competition.
Dr Philip Keane
- Occurrence of foliar diseases in eucalypt seedling regeneration after fire in the Kinglake – Toolangi region.
- Regeneration of plants and occurrence of Phytophthora cinnamomi at a dieback site on Old Mount Slide Road, Kinglake National Park.
Dr Song Li and Prof Roger Parish
- A TTG1 complex regulates seed coat development in Arabidopsis.
- A MYB80/UNDEAD system regulates tapetal programmed cell death.
Dr John Morgan
- Common species declines and niche limitation.
- Heterogeneity, species diversity and conservation management.
- Establishment of native shrubs in temperate woodlands.
- Building a framework for temperate ecosystem dynamics that includes rainfall variability.
- Woodland tree recruitment and patch-dynamic theory.
- Does conservation ranking lead to better conservation outcomes?
- Tools for predicting future invasions and impacts of exotic invaders in alpine ecosystems.
Dr Kim Plummer
- Identification of host specific pathogenicity factors using comparative genomics of scab fungi (causing apple, pear and nashi scab).
- Identification of novel pathogenicity factors in the apple scab fungus.
