Rebecca Greening
Higher Degree by Research Candidate
School of Biological Sciences
Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology
Rebecca is a PhD Candidate who is digging into the effects of livestock on soil ecological processes in Australia's arid rangelands. Her multidisciplinary research combines soil chemistry and eDNA with the study of how plants respond aboveground to investigate whether grazing indirectly limits native plant recruitment and alters nutrient cycles. Her project utilises the TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve—a unique site that has been free from livestock for 100 years—as an ecological baseline to compare with neighbouring grazed land in South Australia's rangelands.
Rebecca's connection to arid lands began during her undergraduate studies, when she volunteered on the reserve's annual vegetation survey, contributing to Australia's longest-running ecological study. Rebecca is passionately working to revitalise interest in this under-recognised site, demonstrating how grazing-exclusion reserves have immense value for understanding arid ecosystem function, benefiting both conservation and pastoralism. She recognises that conservation in arid lands and pastoralism go hand in hand and works to ensure her research is relevant to both—to create practical outcomes that can regenerate arid lands and increase the sustainability of pastoralism.
-
Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2023 - 2023 University of Adelaide Australia Honours Degree of Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) 2020 - 2022 University of Adelaide Australia Bachelor of Science (Ecology and Spatial Science) -
Research Interests
-
Conference Papers
Year Citation 2025 Greening, R., Delean, S., & Facelli, J. M. (2025). A century of livestock exclusion reveals soil microbiome impacts in arid Australia. In XII International Rangelands Congress Proceedings. Adelaide, South Australia, Australia..
2025 Maurice Holtze Research Grant in Botany
2025 Australian Academy of Science Max Day Environmental Science Fellowship Award
2024–2025 Partnership with the SA Arid Lands Landscape Board
2024–2027 The Nature Foundation Roy & Marjory Edwards Scholarship
2024 The Linnean Society of New South Wales William Macleay Microbiology Research Fund
2024 Field Naturalists Society of South Australia Lirabenda Endowment Fund Research Grant
2023 Alwin Clements Prize in Natural History
2023 Nature Foundation Scientific Expedition Foundation RL & GK Willing Grant
Coursework teaching
- ENV BIOL 2502: Ecology II (Semester 2 2023-2025 ) - Demonstrating
- ENV BIOL 2520: Animal Identification II (Semester 1 2024 & 2025) - Demonstrating
-
Committee Memberships
Date Role Committee Institution Country 2023 - ongoing Member Koonamore Reserve Strategic Planning Committee The University of Adelaide Australia
Connect With Me
External Profiles
