Selkirk, Patricia Margaret (née Connell)   (1942 - )

Born in Newcastle, NSW, 1942;

Educated at Narrabeen Girls' High School and The University of Sydney (BSc Hons, PhD).

Became interested in bryophytes during third year Botany studies at the University, with lectures from Tony Martin.

Her fourth (Honours) year, under the supervision of Geoff Berrie, was devoted to establishing specimens of wild-collected Riccia fluitans (as then thought) in axenic culture on both nutrient solution and nutrient agar. This was successful, and allowed experimentation on the effects of changing the nutrient environment of the thallus. This project laid the foundation for her PhD project under Geoff Berrie's supervision.

Post PhD, while spending time at home with small children, she continued the part-time plant biology teaching she'd started as a student, first at University of Sydney, later at Macquarie University. In 1979 she started as a full-time senior tutor in Biology at Macquarie University teaching a third-year subject Plant Diversity and Evolution. Over the years she tutored and lectured in many biology subjects until she retired as a Senior Lecturer in 2002.

In 1979 she stepped back into research work (alongside the teaching) when an opportunity arose for a summer's fieldwork on subantarctic Macquarie Island, working together with bryophyte taxonomist Rod Seppelt.

Between 1979 and 2005 she had opportunities to conduct fieldwork with ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions) on subantarctic Macquarie and Heard Islands and at Casey Station in Antarctica, with New Zealand Antarctic Programme (now Antarctica New Zealand) at Scott Base and in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and with the French IPEV (Institut Polaire Emile Victoire) on subantarctic Îles Kerguelen.

With colleagues she contributed to documenting some of the human-mediated deleterious changes to these environments and their biota.

Her collections from the sub-Antarctic islands were donated to the CANB herbarium (Canberra) in 2023 and were not represented in the AVH map below when it was generated in 2023.

A more detailed biography is available at: https://bryology.org/patricia-selkirk/

Source: Extracted from: Bryological Times 155 - Special Edition: Women in Bryology (2022);
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Margaret_Selkirk
Portrait Photo: Photo supplied by Selkirk to Chris Cargill (ANBG)

Collecting localities for 'Selkirk, P.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 541 specimens