Researcher biography

Dr Loren Fardell is a nationally and internationally acknowledged community wildlife ecologist that uses ethology, habitat assessment, environmental genomics, evolutionary and plasticity dynamics, and conservation biology and physiology practices to understand the dynamics of ecosystems in disturbed environments. Her research focuses on multidimensional human activity and predator to prey relationships, to understand pressures and responses in disturbed environments. She uses progressive and minimally invasive methods to observe human activities, the associated introduced and novel species, habitat structure, and community ecology in relation to the functional behaviour and fear and stress responses of extant wildlife. Dr Fardell’s novel and diverse perspective bridges the gap between scientific disciplines to achieve an understanding of how wildlife conservation may be best achieved and supported to self-sustain. Her understanding of how individual animals respond to pressures and how this may shape their population and in turn the ecosystem, and how the structure of a disturbed habitat may affect such responses, has allowed her to advise on and direct wildlife conservation in disturbed habitats.