Dr Michaela Plein is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and part of the Threatened Species Hub of the National Environmental Science Program (NESP). She is currently looking at how interactions between species influence management of invasive species and translocations of threatened species. Managers often have to act quickly to conserve threatened species, but also need to avoid adverse outcomes of management actions. Finding methods for predicting the outcome of management actions in advance is therefore crucial, especially when little information about the system is available. 

Michaela’s interest has always involved interactions: in her PhD at the University of Melbourne, she focused on how to assess and manage interacting species when one partner is threatened and puts its interaction partner at risk. In her master’s thesis at the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Frankfurt she investigated how interaction networks of frugivore birds varied in different habitats.