Kingsley Dixon

Biography

As Foundation Director of Science at Kings Park and Botanic Garden for 32 years, Professor Dixon has established its research capacity in the conservation and restoration sciences building a group of over 50 scientists and graduate students. His programs emphasise 'science-into-practice', and has been funded by 44 industry partners, representing $24M of research funding in the past decade. As Curtin Professor at Kings Park and Botanic Garden since 2015, he has established new science partnerships, winning nationally competitive funding of $7.6M, creating the International Network for Seed-based Restoration and foundation Chair of the Society for Ecological Restoration Australasia.

Research Interest

Professor Dixon has had the pleasure of working with colleagues and making discoveries that have transformed the horticultural and mining restoration industries, biodiversity conservation and restoration of damaged landscapes. In 1992, he discovered smoke as the component in bushfires that triggers the germination of Australian plants. This discovery transformed many aspects of Australian restoration and conservation practice: from how we conserve rare species in seed banks, to minesite restoration (including the world-acclaimed restoration success of the Alcoa bauxite mines in southwest WA). Few other single ecological findings have had such a profound impact across so many aspects of Australian ecology. Coordinating with colleagues in the US, UK and Europe, he demonstrated the same smoke germination response elsewhere. This established that the action of smoke was independent of whether species were from fire-prone ecosystems – taking the discovery more broadly into many aspects of plant production in horticulture, conservation of rare species and restoration. Smoke water is now marketed internationally based on his work, with uses ranging from restoring olive grove diversity in Spain, prairie restoration, to rehabilitating heather in Scotland. He then undertook an 11-year study with colleagues at UWA and Murdoch University to identify the chemical(s) in smoke responsible for germination. His team sifted through the more than 4,000 chemicals in smoke to isolate the new molecule – named karrikinolide to honour local nyoongar culture where karrik means ‘smoke’. This discovery, published in Science (2004), created a new research front that has resulted in karrikinolides being recognised and studied as an entirely new class of plant growth regulation hormones (the first for almost 30 years. A chronology of his research milestones is presented in his curriculum vitae (available upon request). His research has attracted worldwide attention, even featuring in David Attenborough’s award winning BBC series The Private Life of Plants. He is recognised internationally for his engaging presentations, scientific leadership and scholarship, and acknowledged as the driving force behind creating the world-recognised research laboratories in Kings Park and Botanic Garden (from having only one technical officer when he commenced in 1982, to now being Australia’s leading research botanic garden, and one of the top five facilities of its type globally). The research enriches the education curriculum through links to the leading schools program in Kings Park with direct contact teaching of 10,000 children in Australian plants, animals and ecosystems. He has been a co-recipient of three Golden Gecko Awards for Environmental Excellence (1997, 2000, 2008), the Australian Minerals Energy Environment Foundations Awards of Environmental Excellence (1992, 1996), Chancellor’s Medal (2010) UWA, Award of Honour (2013) the Australian Orchid Foundation. He was also recently named Scientist of the Year (2016) in the Premiers Science Awards. International recognition includes the award of the Linnean Medal for Botany 2013, and admittance as a Fellow of the Linnean Society. Benefits of his research extend from the urban–bushland interface to farming communities to the mining industry. Mining companies benefit through improving their social license to operate and facilitated regulatory approvals because of enhanced restoration post-mining, and savings estimated in the millions of dollars for earlier start-ups and more cost-effective restoration outcomes. He holds two patents: smoke chemical identity (XXX); seed ablation PCT/AU2016/000202)