Dr John Tibby

Biography/ Background

John Tibby leads the Environmental Reconstruction and Monitoring Research Group at the University of Adelaide and currently supervises nine PhD and one Masters student.

 

His current research focuses on the history of wetlands on North Stradbroke Island (NSI), south-east Queensland and the history of the Lower Murray River lakes, South Australia.  The NSI project is supported by an ARC Linkage grant (LP0990124) with the Department of Environment and Resource Management (Qld) and Consolidated Rutile Limited as partners.  Dr Patrick Moss (University of Queensland), Dr Galen Halverson (McGill University) and Dr Jennie Fluin (Geology and Geophysics, Adelaide) are the other university investigators. The lower Murray project is supported by an ARC Linkage grant (LP100100215) awarded to Dr Jennie Fluin and John Tibby, with the Department of Environment and Heritage and The South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resource Management Board as partners.

 

John undertook his PhD at Monash University developing a diatom-based model for inferring the history of nutrient levels (total phosphorus) in water storage reservoirs (Tibby 2004). He has researched and lectured in the UK at Loughborough University and University College London (Environmental Change Research Centre). He was a research associate for Prof Peter Kershaw (Monash) on the environmental history of the Maritime Continent and for Dr Peter Gell (Adelaide) and Dr Peter Wallbrink (CSIRO Land and Water) on the sources and affect of nutrient pollution in the upper Torrens River catchment (SA).

 

From 2005-2007 he was an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow researching the history of Eastern Australian coastal lakes (Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP0558887 "European impact on Eastern Australian coastal lakes: understanding pre-impact conditions and post-settlement modification").

Qualifications

BA (Hons, 1st Class) Monash, 1992.

PhD, Monash, 2000. Thesis title: "The development of a diatom-based model for inferring total phosphorus and application to Burrinjuck Reservoir, southern New South Wales, Australia"

Teaching Interests

GEST 1002-Footprints on a Fragile Planet (Semester 2) (with Rachel Nanson, co-ordinator: John Tibby)

GEST 2026/3026-Climate Change (semester 2) ( co-ordinator: John Tibby)

GEST 2011/3011-Biogeography and Biodiversity Conservation (2012) (co-ordinator: Douglas Bardsley)

Publications

Refereed publications 2005-present

Book chapters

Bennion, H., Sayer, C.D., Tibby, J. and Carrick, H.J. (2010). Diatoms as indicators of environmental change in shallow lakes. In: E. F. Stoermer and J. P. Smol. (Eds.) The Diatoms: Applications for the Earth and Environmental Sciences. New York, Cambridge University Press, pp. 152 – 173.

 

Tibby, J., Kershaw, A.P., Builth, H., Philibert, A. & White, C. (2006). Environmental change and variability in south-western Victoria: changing constraints and opportunities for occupation and land use. In: B. David, B. Barker and I.J. McNiven (Eds.). The Social Archaeology of Australian Indigenous Societies. Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, pp. 254-269.

 

Journal articles

 

            Dick J., Haynes D., Tibby J., Garcia A. and Gell P. (2011). A history of aquatic plants in the Coorong, a Ramsar-listed coastal wetland, South Australia. Journal of Paleolimnology.

 

Haynes D., Skinner R., Tibby J., Cann J. and Fluin J. (2011). Diatom and foraminifera relationships to water quality in The Coorong, South Australia, and the development of a diatom-based salinity transfer function. Journal of Paleolimnology.  DOI: 10.1007/s10933-011-9508-y

 

Tibby, J., Gell, P., Hancock, G. and Clark, M. (2010). Complex reservoir sedimentation revealed by an unusual combination of sediment records, Kangraoo Creek reservoir, South Australia. Journal of Paleolimnology 43: 535-549.

Philibert A., Tibby J. and Williams M.A.J. (2010). A Middle Pleistocene diatomite from the western piedmont of Jebel Marra volcano, Darfur, western Sudan, and its hydrological and climatic significance. Quaternary International 216: 145-150.

 

Fluin J., Tibby J. and Gell P. (2010). The palaeolimnological record from lake Cullulleraine, lower Murray River (south-east Australia): implications for understanding riverine histories. Journal of Paleolimnology 43: 309-322.

 

Gell, P., Fluin, J., Tibby, J., Hancock, G., Harrison, J., Zawadzki, A., Haynes, D., Khanum, S., Little, F. and Walsh, B. (2009). Anthropogenic acceleration of sediment accretion in lowland floodplain wetlands, Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Geomorphology 108(1-2): 122-126.

 

David, B., Roberts, R.G., Magee, J., Mialanes, J., Turney, C., Bird, M., White, C., Fifield, L. K. & Tibby, J. (2007). Sediment mixing at Nonda Rock: Investigations of stratigraphic integrity at an early archaeological site in northern Australia, and implications for the human colonisation of the continent. Journal of Quaternary Science, 22(5): 449-479.

 

Fluin, J., Gell, P.A., Haynes, D., Tibby, J. & Hancock, G. (2007). Paleolimnological evidence for the independent evolution of neighbouring terminal lakes, the Murray Darling Basin, Australia. Hydrobiologia, 591(1) 117-134.

 

Gell, P., Fritz, S. Battarbee R. & Tibby, J. (2007). LIMPACS – Human and climate interactions with lake ecosystems: setting research priorities in the study of the impact of salinisation and climate change on lakes, 2005 – 2010. Hydrobiologia, 591(1): 99-101.

 

Gell, P., Tibby, J., Baldwin, D., Little, F. & Hancock, G. (2007). The impact of regulation and salinisation on floodplain lakes: the lower River Murray, Australia. Hydrobiologia 591(1): 135-146.

 

Haynes, D., Gell, P., Tibby, J., Hancock, G. & Goonan, P. (2007). Against the tide: the freshening of naturally saline coastal lakes, southeastern South Australia. Hydrobiologia 591(1): 165-183.

 

Tibby, J. & Haberle, S.G. (2007). A late glacial to present diatom record from Lake Euramoo, wet tropics of Queensland, Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 251: 46-56.

 

Tibby, J. & Tiller, D. (2007). Climate-water quality relationships in three Western Victorian (Australia) lakes 1984-2000. Hydrobiologia, 591(1): 219-234.

 

Tibby, J., Gell, P.A., Fluin, J. & Sluiter, I. (2007). Diatom-salinity relationships in wetlands: assessing the influence of salinity variability on the development of inference models. Hydrobiologia 591(1): 207-218.

 

Tibby, J., Lane, M.B. & Gell, P.A. (2007). Local knowledge as a basis for environmental management: a cautionary tale from Lake Ainsworth, northern New South Wales, Australia. Environmental Conservation, 34: 334-341.

 

Gell, P., Fluin, J., Tibby, J., Haynes, D., Khanum, S.I., Walsh, B., Hancock, G., Harrison, J., Zawadzki, A. & Little, F. (2006). Changing fluxes of sediments and salts as recorded in lower River Murray wetlands, Australia. International Association of Hydrological Sciences, 306: 416-424.

 

Haberle, S.G., Tibby, J., Dimitriadis, S. & Heijnis, H. (2006). The impact of European occupation on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem dynamics in an Australian tropical rainforest. Journal of Ecology, 94: 987–1002.

 

Turney, C.S.M., Kershaw, A.P., Lowe, J.J., van der Kaars, S., Johnston, R., Rule, S., Moss, P., Radke, L., Tibby, J., McGlone, M.S., Wilmshurst, J.M., Vandergoes, M.J., Fitzsimons, S.J., Bryant, C., James, S., Branch, N.P., Cowley, J., Kalin, R.M., Ogle, N., Jacobsen, G. & Fifield, L.K. (2006). Climatic variability in the southwest Pacific during the Last Termination (20-10 kyr BP). Quaternary Science Reviews, 25: 886-903.

 

Barry, M.J., Tibby, J., Tsitsalis, A., Mason, B., Kershaw, P. & Heijnis, H. (2005). A long term lake salinity record and its relationship to Daphnia populations. Archiv Für Hydrobiologie, 163: 1-23.

 

Gell, P., Tibby, J., Fluin, J., Leahy, P., Reid, M., Adamson, K., Bulpin, S., MacGregor, A., Wallbrink, P. & Walsh, B. (2005). Accessing limnological change and variability using fossil diatom assemblages, south-east Australia. River Research and Applications, 21: 257-269.

 

Leahy, P.J., Tibby, J., Kershaw, A.P. & Heijnis, H. (2005). The impact of European settlement on Bolin Billabong, a Yarra River floodplain lake, Melbourne. River Research and Applications, 21: 131-149.

 

 

Entry last updated: Saturday, 14 May 2011