Staff profile

Dr Sarah Avitabile

Early Career Development Fellow

Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering

School of Life Sciences
Department of Zoology

Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

BSc(Hons), PhD (La Trobe)

Membership of professional associations

Ecological Society of Australia

Area of study

Zoology

Brief profile

  • Practical class coordinator for second and third year Zoology subjects (see teching units below)
  • Project Officer for Mallee HawkEye Project. This project involves La Trobe and Deakin Universities in partnership with the Department of Sustainability and Environment and will examine the effect of fire and prescribed burning on biodiversity in the mallee, north western Victoria.
  • Primary research interest is fire ecology, in particluar the use of surrogates in fire management and the effect of fire on invertebrates

Teaching units

ZOO2FE Australian Fauna and Ecology

ZOO3EPA Reproductive Physiology

ZOO3EPA Animal/Plant Interactions

ZOO3EPA Mallee Field Course

ZOO3EPB Behavioural Ecology

Recent publications

 

Haslem, A., Kelly, L. T., Nimmo, D. G., Watson, S. J., Kenny, S. A., Taylor, R. S., Avitabile, S.C., Callister, K.E., Spence-Bailey, L.M., Clarke, M.F. & Bennett, A.F. (2011). Habitat or fuel? Implications of long-term, post-fire dynamics for the development of key resources for fauna and fire. Journal of Applied Ecology, 48(1), 247-256.   Clarke, M. F., Avitabile, S. C., Brown, L., Callister, K. E., Haslem, A., Holland, G. J., Kelly, L.T., Kenny, S.A., Nimmo, D.G., Spence-Bailey, L.M., Taylor, R.S., Watson, S.J. & Bennett, A.F. (2010). Ageing mallee eucalypt vegetation after fire: insights for successional trajectories in semi-arid mallee ecosystems. Australian Journal of Botany, 58, 363-372.   Haslem, A., Callister, K. E., Avitabile, S. C., Griffioen, P. A., Kelly, L. T., Nimmo, D. G., Spence-Bailey, L. M., Taylor, R.S., Watson, S.J., Brown, L., Bennett, A.F. & Clarke, M.F. (2010). A framework for mapping vegetation over broad spatial extents: A technique to aid land management across jurisdictional boundaries. Landscape and Urban Planning, 97(4), 296-305.