Dittmann and her team conduct regular monitoring of South Australia's Coorong, assessing the availability of food for migratory waders and how benthic invertebrates respond to changes in the environment.
[4] Dittmann's research at AIMS in Queensland showed that soldier crabs, Mictyris longicarpus, prey on meiofauna, demonstrating an example of species interaction on tidal flats: "At that time, it was doubted by the scientific community that species interactions would play a role in benthic communities of tropical tidal flats, as extreme environmental conditions appeared to be the prevailing factor.
"[5] Her subsequent work with an interdisciplinary team examined living and non-living components of the ecosystem in the Wadden Sea — an extensive intertidal zone that stretches along the coast from the Netherlands to Denmark, taking in many German estuaries.
The team analysed the effect of both natural and experimentally induced disturbances, and how stability of the organisms depends on mechanisms like high functional diversity, reproductive output and mobility.
[6] Dittmann's monitoring work in the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth also uses experimental disturbances, relocating benthic macroinvertebrates such as polychaete worms, amphipods and micro-bivalves to sites of different salinity and exposure.