Australian Tropical Herbarium

17/08/2026

A Senior Botanist position in the Qld Government's Regional Ecosystem mapping team based in the Cairns Region with the Australian Tropical Herbarium has now been advertised.

This is an extremely rare opportunity to work with an amazing team on some of the most incredible landscapes anywhere.

For more information, and to apply, follow the link below:
https://smartjobs.qld.gov.au/jobtools/jncustomsearch.viewFullSingle?in_organid=15033&in_jnCounter=223185241&in_location=%22Cairns+region%22+&in_orderby=scoring%20desc

23/06/2026

Robyn Williams from ABC's The Science Show recently visited the ATH to talk about tropical plant science. We had a great chat about the importance of collections for understanding and effectively managing and sustainably utilising biodiversity, and of the value (and joy!) of taxonomy - listen via the link below.

James Cook University in Cairns hosts Australia’s tropical herbarium.

12/03/2026

Get ready for the Australasian Plant Conservation Conference in beautiful Port Douglas, Aug 24-28. Call for abstracts live!

Abstract submissionRegistration (coming soon)Speakers (tba)SponsorshipField trips (tba)Social eventsGetting there The Call for Abstracts now open! Submission deadline is 1 May 2026. Download the Abstract Submission form here. Early bird registration will commence in the next few weeks. A list of pot...

17/12/2024

PhD Scholarship available - Project: Systematics and ecology of wood rot fungi (bracket fungi and relatives, Polyporales)

Project outline: Wood rotting fungi in the order Polyporales (bracket fungi and relatives) include pathogens, heart-rotters, structural timber destroyers, indigenous foods and fire fungi. They are key organisms in global carbon cycling, provide key ecosystem services, and are indicators of forest health. Pathogenic species induce heart-rots, limb drop and tree-fall, affecting forestry value and public risk. Many pathogens are host-restricted, and some require biosecurity control. Their enzymes have potential industrial applications in paper production and recycling of microcrystalline cellulose, synthetic dyes and plastics, and agro-wastes. Despite the risk to environment and industry assets, and in the face of increasingly complex movement and environmental change, Australian biosecurity practitioners are limited by few identification tools and taxonomic uncertainty.

If you would like to help solve these issues, we have a fully funded PhD project including a scholarship (valued at $34,000 per annum tax free) available to work with local and global taxonomic experts in applying cutting edge genomic tools to systematics and taxonomy of polypore fungi. Project could also include DNA barcoding of wood rot communities, or ecology of wood rot fungi.

Location: Australian Tropical Herbarium, James Cook University, Nguma-bada Campus, Cairns 4878, QLD, Australia.

Supervisors: Dr. Matt Barrett, Dr. Teresa Lebel (external), Prof. Darren Crayn

Minimum requirements: typically a Bachelor’s degree with Second Class, Division A (Honours) or above, or Master of Philosophy degree, but other options can be found at: https://www.jcu.edu.au/graduate-research-school/hdr-candidates/postgraduate-research-scholarships/hdr-scholarships-for-domestic-candidates

Enquiries to: [email protected]
Commencement: ASAP

30/05/2024

A review on buzz pollination in the context of plant invasions has been published in the Journal of Ecology.

ATH PhD student, Laura Lopresti, and Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Daniel Montesinos, along with Prof. Lori Lach, found that plants that exhibit traits consistent with the buzz-pollination syndrome are underrepresented as invasive species across the globe. The result suggests that the specialist buzz-pollination syndrome poses a partial barrier to plant invasions. This review also highlighted six alternative behaviours that insects can use to pollinated plants with the buzz-pollinated pollination syndrome, potentially contributing to their success as invasive species.

Congratulations, Laura, on the first paper from your PhD!

The paper is free to read and download here –
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14338

25/04/2024

Angiosperm diversification paper published in Nature.

A major paper reporting new insights into angiosperm diversification has just been published in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious science journals. The research, based on a phylogenetic tree including more than half (nearly 8,000) of all angiosperm genera, shows that pulses of diversification occurred at different times since the origins of angiosperms more than 150 million years ago.

The paper is a result of the PAFTOL (Plant and Fungi Tree of Life) project led by Kew Gardens (UK) and involving 60 Australian researchers from 20 institutions through the Genomics for Australian Plants Consortium (GAP). The ATH had a leading role in coordinating the GAP contribution to this research through Lalita Simpson, and Katharina Nargar, Melissa Harrison, Lizzy Joyce, Matt Barrett, Lars Nauheimer, Stuart Worboys and Darren Crayn all contributed in significant ways including leadership, project design, sampling, analysis and writing the paper.

The scale of the Australian consortium is testament to the strength and depth of collaboration across Australian herbaria and botanic gardens. The great majority of the samples for the study came from research collections, which is a great example of the step change in biodiversity science and discovery that is being catalysed by innovative use of collections.

Congratulations to all authors!
The paper is published open access and is free to read and download here - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07324-0 .

Phylogenomic analysis of 7,923 angiosperm species using a standardized set of 353 nuclear genes produced an angiosperm tree of life dated with 200 fossil calibrations, providing key insights into evolutionary relationships and diversification.

21/12/2023

Biosystematics Conference 2023 was recently held in Canberra.

The Biosystematics Conference 2023, themed "Celebrating the past | Planning the future," was a significant event held from November 26th to 30th in Canberra. Representatives from the Australian Tropical Herbarium were in attendance, where two students, Consolata Nanjala and Stephanie Goedderz, delivered insightful presentations on their research focusing on Australasian orchids. Consolata presented her PhD research project proposal, earning acclaim and securing the Bob Anderson Award for her exceptional presentation. The event provided a platform for Stephanie and Consolata to engage with and learn from distinguished researchers in the field of plant systematics. Their interactions fostered meaningful exchanges of ideas, and they were particularly delighted by the opportunity to engage with the distinguished Australian taxonomist Mark Clements. The conference served as a pivotal forum for knowledge exchange, fostering connections, and advancing research in the field of plant systematics.

19/12/2023

We would like to let our followers know that our personnel and collections are safe following the cyclone and floods in the Cairns region.

19/10/2023

A new Lucid key to Australian Mistletoes has just been launched.

The Australian Mistletoe Key arose from a need identified by Roger Fryer and Jill Newland. Together, they photographed the majority of Australian mistletoes and realised that they needed an up-to-date key to identify the species. Unfortunately, Jill died before work began on the key, but, supported by Darren Crayn, Frank Zich and Stuart Worboys of the Australian Tropical Herbarium, Roger has developed the key over the past 2 years.

This key covers all the Australian aerial mistletoes from the Loranthaceae and Santalaceae families, including the off-shore islands. The parasitic terrestrial trees and shrubs of these families are not covered.

https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v4/australian-mistletoe/

10/10/2023

Origins of orchids – new DNA study

The State of the World’s Plants and Fungi (SOTWPF) 2023 report found 45 per cent of all known flowering plant species could be at risk of extinction. The plant family Orchidaceae (orchids) is the largest in the plant kingdom and among the most threatened. Katharina Nargar, Research Scientist at the Australian Tropical Herbarium contribute to a global DNA study into the origin and diversification of orchids. Read more here and find a link to the report (apologies for the bad link in the original post):
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/Articles/2023/October/state-of-plants-orchids