GENERAL RESOURCES

The Centre for Ecosystem Management (The Centre), and the School of Natural Sciences (The School) provide a comprehensive range of facilities for researchers and postgraduates students.

Office Space
All researchers and postgraduates are provided with airconditioned office space. Access is provided to phones and fax machines.
In early 2001 the Centre, and School, moved into a new $22+ million dollar purpose built building. This provided a dramatic increase in office space and research facilities.

Computers
The Centre provides a set of modern networked PC's for use by postgraduates. Laser-printers and scanners are also available.
Honorary Research Fellows (based at Edith Cowan University) and Postdoctoral Fellows are provided with networked computers by the Centre or School. Computers can be made available to Visitors.

Research Space
Although previously limited, the new building has substantially improved the availability of research space, providing state of the art research areas for all Centre members and postgraduate students.

The Centre has various research laboratories:

  • Conservation Biology Laboratory
  • Land Management Laboratory
  • Soils Ecology Laboratory
  • Aquatic Research Laboratory
  • Wetlands Management Laboratory
  • Environmental Chemistry Laboratory
  • Tissue Culture Laboratory
  • Cell Biology Laboratory
  • Animal Science Laboratory
  • Plant Chemical Laboratory
  • Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Laboratory

Each of these laboratories is equipped with various resources relevant to the field of study such as drying ovens, furnaces, and microscopes and there are also several constant temperature rooms, a heat exchange room, cool rooms and freezers as well as an aquarium room and an animal house.

Vehicles
The Centre and School has a fleet of vehicles ( a Landcruiser, a 4WD dual cab Navara ute and a Lancer station wagon), these are available to hire at a fixed rate per kilometer.

Boats
Boats available to Centre members include 2 custom-built boats designed specifically for marine research, an inflatable rubber boat (IRB), punt, canoe and two small dinghy's.

Chemical Analysis
The School has a well-equipped analytical laboratory that is available to Centre members. This includes:

  • An autoanalyser for N and P analysis;
  • Gas chromatographs with varying detection systems including flame ionisation, electron capture, mass spectrometry and thermal conductivity,
  • A C and N stable isotope mass spectrometer;
  • High performance liquid chromatographs with ultraviolet detection;
  • A flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer with graphite furnace capabilities;
  • Ultra-violet and visible spectrophotometers;
  • An infrared spectrophotometer; and
  • The School also has access to an inductively coupled mass spectrophotometer.

Geographic Information Systems
The School has a specialised computer laboratory for GIS and Remote Sensing Applications, using the ESRI software and ERMapper. These facilities are available to Centre members.

Equipment
The Centre has also purchased various pieces of equipment through its postgraduate support scheme. These include:

Marine/wetland

  • Benthic Chambers

  • 6x Stainless Steel Scoop nets

  • pH Meters & associated Equipment

  • 20x Diving Cylinders

  • 2x submergible light loggers

  • 1x Canadian Canoe, 2x Lifejackets, 2x paddles, 2x waterproof containers

  • Stainless steel benthic corer

  • 6x temperature logger units, 1x starter kit

  • 10 Underwater light loggers & logger cleaning units

  • Scuba Diving gear:
    8x Buoyancy Control Devices, each with regulator, octopus, computer gauge & inflator hose set.

  • 21.5m Siene nets

  • Marron fishing Equipment: Drop nets, jumbo opera house traps, scoop net

  • Fish tag isertion guns

Terrestrial

  • Extech Anaerobic Glovebox

  • Panasonic NV GS-400 Digital Video Camera with bag, battery and digital tape

  • Radio-Tracking Equipment [10x Transmitters (with batteries), 15x replacement batteries, Receiver (Biotel RX5 with rechargeable batteries), Antenna (3-element Yagi collapsible), Extra (glue/harness for attachment)].

  • 12x 9 watt fluorescent light, 2x 12v deep cycle battery, 2x Timer switch, 2x 45 watt solar panels, 2x regulator

Other

  • Camera Equipment (Zoom lens & converter for 35mm camera) to use with school camera

  • A modified Ricoh XF30-E camera

  • UWGM Bench Balances 11000g & 1000g

  • Icom IC40S UHF hand held radios

  • Meteorological Station

  • 5x Peristaltic Pump Heads

  • Magellan and Garmin GPS units + software

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