Dr David Mackay

Biography

David is a plant ecologist with over 25 years of experience working in terrestrial ecosystems. His primary focus has been on plant ecology and management including translocations, plant biology, plant systematics, plant landscape genetics, seed-bank dynamics, fire ecology, and targeting reproductive ecology as an avenue for understanding and potentially improving the conservation status of threatened species and communities, or as a route for controlling weedy species.

He has experience working in temperate and tropical ecosystems in Australia, PNG and Malaysia. He has worked on many projects as an ecological consultant to the NSW and Commonwealth environment agencies.

David lectures in Ecology and Botany at the University of New England.

David is currently the team leader in the Aquatic Ecology and Restoration team at UNE for the terrestrial vegetation aspect of the MER project in the Gwydir and Warrego Wetlands.

Qualifications

• PhD in plant ecology – awarded in 2018, UNE - ‘Can the Rusty Fig, Ficus rubiginosa, beat climate change?’. This project addressed aspects of plant population ecology, community ecology (plant-pollinator-parasite interactions and plant-bird interactions), plant biology (impacts of climate change on flowering and fruiting phenology), habitat fragmentation, climate change, insect ecology and landscape genetics.
• BSc Hons in Botany – awarded in 1986, USYD.

Research Interests

Key projects:

• Currently leading the terrestrial vegetation component of the Gwydir and Warrego Wetlands MER project at UNE. I have been working as part of the Aquatic Ecology and Restoration team at UNE since December 2022.
• I am researching and assessing tree health, lignum health and associated wetland plant community health in collaboration with researchers from the NSW Dep’t of Planning and Environment.
• My PhD research on avian visitation has been a game-changer for our understanding of the ecological role played by fig trees in the critical support I showed they provide to insectivorous birds year-round (Mackay, K.D., Gross, C.L. and Rossetto, M. (2018). Small populations of fig trees offer a keystone food resource and conservation benefits for declining insectivorous birds. Global Ecology and Conservation 2018-06 DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2018.e00403). This published work has received international attention and I was interviewed for the US-based on-line science newsletter Mongabay; I was contacted by Silverback Films in the UK (the makers of the David-Attenborough-narrated ‘Our Planet’ series and other nature documentaries), as they explored new ideas for filming possibilities; and I was twice interviewed on ABC Radio National (including the Science Show) to communicate these findings and others from my PhD research.
• Research on the important roles played by plant-pollinator and plant-frugivore mutualisms in plant species’ range expansions and evolution:
• (1) Range expansion and evolution of figs in response to climate change (Mackay, K.D.and Gross, C.L. (2019). Climate change threatens a fig-frugivore mutualism at its drier, western range margin. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 141:S1-S17. Published on 10 April 2019 at https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ LIN/index); and
• (2) Population expansion by Bitou Bush, an introduced weed of national significance (Gross, C. L., Whitehead, J. D., Silveira de Souza, C., & Mackay, D.(2017). Unsuccessful introduced biocontrol agents can act as pollinators of invasive weeds: Bitou Bush (Chrysanthemoides monilifera ssp. rotundata) as an example. Ecology and Evolution, 7(20), 8643-8656). Our work on Bitou Bush showed that the seed-parasite fly introduced as a biological control agent is the main pollinator of Bitou Bush, and its net impact has been to significantly increase seed production by this Weed of National Significance.
• Interactions between honey bees and native bees, and the reproductive ecology of a rainforest pioneer plant species, Melastoma affine. This work (published in Gross & Mackay 1998) contributed to ‘competition from feral honeybees, Apis mellifera’, being declared a Threatening Process in NSW by the NSW Scientific Committee (url https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/threatened-species/nsw- threatened-species-scientific-committee/determinations/final-determinations/2000- 2003/competition-from-feral-honeybees-key-threatening-process-listing)
• Numerous Save Our Species research projects and others for the NSW Department of Environment.