Every creature needs water to survive biologically. Well, I need water to survive academically.

In my early steps as an academic, as a Master student in Environmental Science in Poland, I studied the role of water quality on people’s quality of life. I marched around the local reservoir, that is Zemborzycki Reservoir formed by damming Bystrzyca river gully, for 2 hours, two days each week of local summer to count users of reservoir-side. We learnt that the number of people resting around the Zemborzycki Reservoir dropped 6 times between 1974 and 2006 (see Kulak and Waryszak 2010). This was clearly associated with significant deterioration of the reservoir ecological condition, for example water quality decreased with every algal bloom and vegetation cover decreased with every new development. That is when I started to further my interest in how nature works, how we can renew our connection with the natural world and how I can help as a restorationist.

During my MSc study I met my future wife Christina who also graduated from Environmental Science and similarly was obsessed with nature. Thanks to her PhD scholarship we ventured into the Antipodes. While Christina was studying the role of microbes in the invasion success of Acacias, I started work as a Research Assistant in Plant Ecology at Macquarie University, Sydney – Australia. Under supervision of prof. Mark Westoby, I was part of a research team that looked at strategies that plants employ to balance their water needs (see Gleason et al 2012) and under the supervision of prof. Michelle Leishman I looked at how invasive plants respond to chemical control under elevated CO2 (see Waryszak et al 2018).

It was a natural flow of things for me to continue growing my academic skills as a restorationist and I “graduated” to a PhD research student at Murdoch Uni, Perth, WA. Under supervision of Dr Joe Fontaine, I professed data management skills, statistics in R and learnt how to use a salvaged topsoil to restore Banksia Woodland of the Swan Coastal Plain (see Waryszak et al 2021).

After my PhD in coastal WA, I followed my now-wife to explore coastal Louisiana, USA. Christina got a great opportunity to look at the role of microbes on invasion success of Phragmites australis in local wetlands as a postdoctoral researcher in the Farrer Lab. I got an opportunity to be her Research Assistant. Together we researched the microbial impacts of an invasive species across an environmental gradient in Louisiana wetlands (see Farrer et al 2021), fungal associates in Phragmites australis (see Schroeder et al 2021), and the effects of climate change on wetland plant communities in Louisiana (see Birnbaum et al 2021). Also in Louisiana we welcomed big news – Christina was pregnant. We jumped overseas to welcome our daughter in Victoria, where we also got an opportunity to work for the Blue Carbon Lab – after respective maternity and paternity leave, of course.

This year 2021 marks the start of the UN decade of restoration and I was really happy to hear from ESA conference organizers that our symposium on “Tailored restoration response: predictions and guidelines for coastal wetland renewal using ecological theory and data” was accepted. Get ready for more restoration action and great talks from world leaders in the restoration ecology with a special focus on mangroves around the Gulf of Carpentaria!

See you in Darwin at #ESAus21 conference!!

– Pawel Waryszak, Blue Carbon Lab (Deakin University)