I was born Perpetua Blanks, in Melbourne, Australia, but from the age of 5 to my late teens I grew up in Bendigo amongst Box-Ironbark forests regrowing after the Victorian gold mining era. Surrounded by the Australian bush and given the opportunity of a childhood adventuring outdoors, my choice of career was destined to focus on the natural world.

After finishing college, I moved back to Melbourne, graduating from The University of Melbourne School of Botany in 1996 with a BSc.Hons in Ecology.  My Hons project was supposed to be an investigation into the response of fire on a species of Kunzea, but as final year exams clashed with when I was required to do the necessary pre-treatment field work, led and supervised by Prof. Mark Burgman, I instead settled on a project investigating how well vegetation communities based on vascular plants could be used as surrogates for the bryological flora. Under the guidance of the father of Australian bryology, the late Dr George Scott, and supported by bryologists Lucille Turner and Dr David Meagher, I was sucked into the fascinating miniature world that is bryology.

In my Hons year I was called ‘Moss Lady’. George Scott named those of us new to bryology as  ‘budding protonema’, a term I proudly now pass on.  After my first-class Hons degree, I successfully gained a position as Scientific Officer with the Victorian Government. Over the next three years I travelled the state, mapping vegetation communities from the mountains to the sea, and had the opportunity to see firsthand successional processes and bryophyte survival in harsh environments. I learned how integral bryophytes were to early succession, stabilising the soil and creating nursery sites. Fascinated by alpine ecology, I decided this was what I wanted to study, and I was successful in obtaining a PhD scholarship to the University of Melbourne and the University of Tasmania. The choice of university was hard; to continue to study bryophyte ecology was not.  

The fact that I still live in Tasmania is tell-tale of the choice I made. And, instead of alpine bryology, my dissertation, supervised by Prof. Jamie Kirkpatrick, centred on the conservation ecology of bryophytes in wet eucalypt forest. Publications from this work found the bryophyte flora in these forests was not at risk under the logging regime employed. But now, 20 years on, with shorter logging rotations and mature forest elements at risk of declining with a changing climate (fire), the risk is heightened.

A career on bryophyte and vascular plant ecology has opened many doors. Working with Dr Dana Bergstrom, I ventured to Heard and Macquarie Islands and published on the effects of climate change on vascular plants. Here, the discovery of a twelfth vascular plant species on Heard Island was a highlight. Post-doctoral research with the Bushfire CRC, Forestry Tasmania and the University of Tasmania questioned the use of the stand-replacing fire paradigm as a basis for production forestry; practices now better reflect natural disturbance in forested landscapes. Research with the Forest Practices Authority of Tasmania has reported on the ecology of threatened species and tree ferns in Australian forests. I currently work with the Tasmania Fire Service, working in planning to reduce bushfire risk whilst protecting the things we value.  Bryology has mostly flourished through expertise in non-vascular plants on the Tasmanian Threatened Species Scientific Advisory Committee and student supervision of projects on topics such as the value of coarse woody debris for bryophytes, the effects of logging on tree ferns and their epiphytes, and successional patterns of bryophytes in wet eucalypt forests.

Whilst the adventures have been rewarding, the most fulfilling aspect of my career has been the people. Bryologists feature strongly; they have stayed with me since my first Australasian Bryophyte Workshop in Brisbane in 1996 and their support has never, ever stopped. Now I find myself fitting into their leadership and mentor shoes and I am forever grateful of the roads they have forged to follow.  

Selected publications

Donoghue, S. and Turner, P.A.M. A review of Australian tree fern ecology in forest communities. Austral Ecology, 47(2): 145-165. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aec.13103

Turner P.A.M., Kirkpatrick J.B and Pharo, E.J. (2011) Dependence of bryophyte species on young, mature and old growth wet eucalypt forest. Biological Conservation 144, 2951–2957.

Browning B.J., Jordan G.J., Dalton P.J., Grove S.J., Wardlaw T.J., Turner P.A.M. (2010) Succession of mosses, liverworts and ferns on coarse woody debris, in relation to forest age and log decay in Tasmanian wet eucalypt forest. Forest Ecology and Management 260, 1896–1905.

Hodge D.A., Pharo E.J., Dalton, P.J., & Turner, P.A.M. (2009) Successional patterns of terrestrial bryophytes along a wildfire chronosequence in the wet eucalypt forests of southern Tasmania. Tasforests 67 – 76.

Turner P.A.M., Balmer J. & Kirkpatrick J.B. (2009) Stand-replacing wildfires? The incidence of multi-cohort and single-cohort Eucalyptus regnans and obliqua forests in southern Tasmania. Forest Ecology and Management 258, 366-75.

Turner P.A.M. & Kirkpatrick J.B. (2009) Do logging, followed by burning, and wildfire differ in their decadal scale effects on tall open-forest bryophytes and vascular plants Forest Ecology and Management 258, 679-86.

Turner, P.A.M. and Kirkpatrick, J.B. and Pharo, E.J. (2006) Bryophyte relationships with environmental and structural variables in Tasmanian old growth mixed eucalypt forest. Australian Journal of Botany 54, 239-247.

Bergstrom, D.M., Turner, P.A.M., Scott, J.J., Copson, G. and Shaw, J.D. (2006). Restricted plant species on sub-Antarctic Macquarie and Heard Islands. Polar Biology 26, 532-539.

Pharo, E.J., Kirkpatrick, J.B., Gilfedder, L., Mendel, L., and Turner, P.A.M. (2005) Predicting bryophyte diversity in grassland and eucalypt-dominated remnants in subhumid Tasmania. Journal of Biogeography. 32, 2015–2024.

Turner, P.A.M., Scott, J.J. and Rozefelds A.R. (2005). Probable long distance dispersal of Leptinella plumosa Hook.f. to Heard Island: habitat, status and discussion of its arrival. Polar Biology 29, 160-168.

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Publications