School of Environmental Sciences
Assoc Prof Gary Luck
BAppSc (Hons) SAust, PhD ECU
Position Associate Professor , Wildlife Ecology and Management
Campus Thurgoona Campus
Office Room 106, SES Building
Phone (02) 6051 9945
Fax (02) 6051 9897
EMAIL GARY LUCK 
Member of ILWS
Gary is an ecologist with an interest in a broad range of topics including developing conservation strategies for native fauna in agricultural landscapes, examining the role of vertebrates in providing ecosystem services and understanding the importance of changes in population diversity to service provision, biogeographic patterns in species assemblages and their relationships to human settlement patterns, and human impacts on biodiversity. He has studied or worked at five different universities including a 2–year postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University in California.
Teaching Summary
Gary has taught in a number of different undergraduate and graduate subjects including Applied Ecology, Avian Biology, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Wildlife Ecology, Wildlife Management and Ecosystem Management. He currently supervises or co–supervises 8 PhD students.
Research Students
- Laurence Barea (PhD)
- Andrew Carter (PhD)
- Kylie Eklom (PhD)
- Morgan Kurrajong (PhD)
- Joanne Lawrence (PhD)
- Elisa Tack (PhD)
Interests
- Habitat fragmentation and degradation: I am primarily interested in discovering the underlying mechanisms that explain the decline of certain species occupying fragmented or heavily degraded landscapes.
- Ecosystem services: Developing a conceptual framework to acknowledge the importance of population diversity to the provision of ecosystem services. I am also keen to establish empirical research projects that examine the role of vertebrates in providing ecosystem services.
- Biogeographic patterns: With colleagues from WWF–US and Princeton University, I am examining mechanistic explanations for continental patterns in species richness across Australia and North America. This includes deriving species–occurrence models using factors such as net primary productivity, temperature and evapotranspiration.
- Human impacts on biodiversity: I am particularly interested in examining how changes in the size, distribution and consumption patterns of human populations affect biodiversity.
- Ornithology: Primary interests include bird conservation, habitat use and cooperative breeding.
- Market–based mechanisms: I am a member of a large, international and interdisciplinary research group that plans to examine the utility of market–based mechanisms for conserving biodiversity.
- Potential student projects (honours and postgraduate) can be accommodated in any of these research areas, and I encourage students to contact me for further details.