[after a flood-related postponement, we're back on!]

Learn how to turn your garden or balcony into a colourful, pollinators' heaven with ecosystems scientist and butterfly fan, Dr Jonathan Marshall

In this Sheducation Session, Jon will cover:

An introduction to butterfly biology
The species of butterflies often found in suburban Brisbane gardens
Butterfly-friendly gardening
Some native plants you can grow at home and the butterflies they support

There'll be plenty of time for Q&A, so bring your questions and those notepads for sketching garden plans and writing the nursery shopping list!

About your host

Dr Jonathan Marshall
Principal Scientist (Aquatic Ecosystems), Water Planning Ecology, Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES)

Jon has a broad interest in natural history and grew up in Brisbane keeping and breeding native fish and collecting butterflies. Professionally, he has over 35 years of experience as an aquatic ecologist working on Queensland’s streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands. He completed his PhD in 2002 at Griffith University with research on the environmental and biotic factors influencing the composition of the fauna inhabiting pools in rainforest streams. Before commencing working for the Queensland Government in the Water Planning Ecology Unit in 1996 he worked as an aquatic ecologist at Griffith University and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries. Jon’s areas of interest focus on the ecology of aquatic fauna, particularly macroinvertebrates and fish. He has a particular interest in the development and application of methods and tools to link environmental stressors to ecological responses, including ecosystem responses to flow regime modifications and environmental variability over both short- and long- time scales. Areas of focus include intermittent, dryland rivers and wallum wetlands such as those on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). He currently in a leadership role in the Water Planning Ecology Unit, which provides innovative scientific research, monitoring and assessment to underpin the sustainable management of Queensland’s water resources. For details of Jon’s scientific publications see his Google Scholar Citations page:

http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=N1BoHO8AAAAJ&hl=en

About Shed-ucation

Shed-ucation Sessions are community-driven workshops, knowledge-shares and discussions on everything from line drawing to line dancing to training your chooks to walk in a straight line (maybe?). They’re mostly online, and all free. If you’re keen to get involved as a participant or presenter, you can find out more here.