Dr Wendy Ruscoe

Wendy is a principal research scientist at CSIRO, specialising in rodent ecology and adaptive pest management. Her research integrates spatial modelling, Bayesian inference, and scenario simulation to understand population dynamics and inform sustainable control strategies for pest rodents in agricultural landscapes. She leads nationally significant projects, including the GRDC-funded mouse management programs and the CISS gene drive roadmap, which combine field ecology, predictive analytics, and stakeholder-driven design to improve resilience against mouse plagues. Her work has advanced methods for estimating abundance from burrow counts, assessing bait efficacy under variable conditions, and evaluating non-target impacts of control interventions. Working with Parks Australia, Wendy is involved in island invasive species management focusing on rodent biosecurity surveys and eradication plans.

Prior to her role at CSIRO, Wendy conducted pioneering research in New Zealand on multispecies pest dynamics, focusing on interactions among rodents, mustelids, and possums in native forest ecosystems. Her work at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research contributed to integrated pest management frameworks that accounted for trophic cascades, reinvasion risk, and landscape-scale control efficacy. Across both Australian and New Zealand contexts, she has developed systems-based approaches that link ecological processes with management outcomes, producing decision-support tools for farmers, conservation agencies, and policymakers. Her cross-disciplinary collaborations continue to enhance mechanistic understanding, and improve intervention timing in complex pest systems.