Dr Megan McNellie
Areas of expertise
- Landscape Ecology 050104
- Ecological Applications 0501
- Environmental Science And Management 0502
- Conservation And Biodiversity 050202
- Global Change Biology 069902
- Terrestrial Ecology 060208
Biography
I am an Honorary Senior Lecturer, I completed my PhD as an external and part-time scholar at Fenner School of Environment & Society. I am currently employed as a Senior Scientist with New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. My research delivers predictive and inferential models to protect biodiversity and make better conservation policy and decision making.
My PhD delivered spatially explicit models of vegetation condition over broad scales. I undertook this research in collaboration with CSIRO and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (Victoria) and NSW Department of Planning, Infrastructure and Environment.
My experience and skill base in enriching plot data to support site-scaled assessments of vegetation condition, blending bioinformatics and ecological modelling to support biodiversity policy are the areas where I will extend my future research.
Researcher's projects
* Delivering empirical benchmarks for the NSW Biodiversity Assessment Method by assessing the spatial accuracy and preparing the floristics data for over 36 000 site-based observations needed to predict vegetation richness and foliage cover for all vegetation types in NSW.
* Geospatial data analysis and leverage existing spatial data and knowledge transfer to synthesise an interpret of biodiversity quality and quantity.
* Improving approaches to vegetation condition assessment.
Publications
- McNellie MJ, Oliver I, Ferrier S, Newell G, Manion G, Griffioen P, White M, Koen T, Somerville M, Gibbons P. 2021, 'Extending vegetation site data and ensemble models to predict patterns of foliage cover and species richness for plant functional groups', Landscape Ecology, vol. 36, pp. 1391-1407.
- McNellie MJ, Oliver I, Dorrough J, Ferrier S, Newell G, Gibbons P. 2020, 'Reference state and benchmark concepts for better biodiversity conservation in contemporary ecosystems', Global Change Biology, vol. 26, no. 12, pp. 6702-6714.
- McNellie, M, Dorrough, J & Oliver, I 2019, 'Species abundance distributions should underpin ordinal cover-abundance transformations', Applied Vegetation Science, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 361-372.
- Oliver I, McNellie MJ, Steenbeeke G, Copeland L, Porteners MF, Wall J . 2019, 'Expert allocation of primary growth form to the New South Wales flora underpins the biodiversity assessment method', Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 124-136pp.
- Yen JDL, Dorrough J, Oliver I, Somerville M, McNellie MJ, Watson CJ, Vesk PA 2019, 'Modeling biodiversity benchmarks in variable environments', Ecological Applications, vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 1-16.
- Travers SK, Dorrough J, Oliver I, Somerville M, Watson CJ, McNellie MJ. 2018, 'Using tree hollow data to define large tree size for use in habitat assessment', Australian Forestry, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 186-195pp.
- McNellie, M, Oliver, I & Gibbons, P 2015, 'Pitfalls and possible solutions for using geo-referenced site data to inform vegetation models', Ecological Informatics, vol. 30, pp. 230-234.
- Oliver I, Broese EA, Dillon ML, Sivertsen D, McNellie MJ 2013, 'Semi-automated assignment of vegetation survey plots within an apriori classification of vegetation types', Methods in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 4, pp. 73-81.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Vegetation condition modelling, mapping and monitoring at regional scales (Primary Investigator)
