Diel variation in chironomid (Diptera: Insecta) exuviae abundance and taxonomic richness in near-pristine upland streams of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, South-Eastern Australia

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Wright ◽  
Shelley Burgin
Keyword(s):  
World Heritage ◽  
Diel Variation ◽  
Taxonomic Richness ◽  
Blue Mountains ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
World Heritage Area ◽  
Heritage Area ◽  
South Eastern Australia

Potential lantana invasion of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area under climate change.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gold ◽  
Daniel Ramp ◽  
Shawn W Laffan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Capacity ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Suitable Habitat ◽  
Invasive Weeds ◽  
Ecosystem Integrity ◽  
Blue Mountains ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
World Heritage Area ◽  
Heritage Area

Invasive weeds represent one of the greatest threats to ecosystem integrity worldwide, with climate change predicted to allow expansion of weed ranges in coming decades. One of Australia’s worst weeds is lantana (Lantana camara) which, given the potential for climatic change, is of increasing concern to those managing the mountainous regions in the country’s southeast. In order to identify potential additional threats lantana may pose for Australia’s valued biodiversity, this research develops a habitat suitability model for lantana in a portion of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area under current and simulated warmer conditions. Minimum temperature was found to be the most important predictor correlated with potential lantana establishment, explaining over 88% of the variation in lantana presence predicted by the model. Currently, 8% of the study area was found to be suitable for lantana, with this figure reaching 94% after a simulated 2°C rise in temperature anticipated by 2050. The sharp increase in suitable habitat highlights the importance of keeping the weed’s range restricted in the study area. The strong link between temperature and predicted lantana establishment confirms prior research and further stresses the threat this weed poses to the area’s biodiversity values as the climate warms. In addition, the model identified low-lying riparian areas as potential incursion pathways for the weed to travel further inland. Given the weed’s invasiveness, potential for adverse impacts, and high capacity for dispersal, these pathways should not be overlooked when monitoring potential invasion of mountainous regions by lantana and other tropical weeds.

scholarly journals A spatial analysis of seagrass habitat and community diversity in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex B. Carter ◽  
Catherine Collier ◽  
Emma Lawrence ◽  
Michael A. Rasheed ◽  
Barbara J. Robson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Great Barrier Reef ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Seagrass Habitat ◽  
Water Type ◽  
Barrier Reef ◽  
Seagrass Community ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
World Heritage Area ◽  
Heritage Area

AbstractThe Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) in north eastern Australia spans 2500 km of coastline and covers an area of ~ 350,000 km2. It includes one of the world’s largest seagrass resources. To provide a foundation to monitor, establish trends and manage the protection of seagrass meadows in the GBRWHA we quantified potential seagrass community extent using six random forest models that include environmental data and seagrass sampling history. We identified 88,331 km2 of potential seagrass habitat in intertidal and subtidal areas: 1111 km2 in estuaries, 16,276 km2 in coastal areas, and 70,934 km2 in reef areas. Thirty-six seagrass community types were defined by species assemblages within these habitat types using multivariate regression tree models. We show that the structure, location and distribution of the seagrass communities is the result of complex environmental interactions. These environmental conditions include depth, tidal exposure, latitude, current speed, benthic light, proportion of mud in the sediment, water type, water temperature, salinity, and wind speed. Our analysis will underpin spatial planning, can be used in the design of monitoring programs to represent the diversity of seagrass communities and will facilitate our understanding of environmental risk to these habitats.

Ecological implications of standard fire-mapping approaches for fire management of the World Heritage Area, Fraser Island, Australia

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjeev Kumar Srivastava ◽  
Lee King ◽  
Chris Mitchell ◽  
Aaron Wiegand ◽  
R. W. Carter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Conservation Management ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Affected Area ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
World Heritage Area ◽  
Heritage Area ◽  
Fire Patchiness

The characterisation of spatiotemporal fire patchiness is requisite for informing biodiversity conservation management in many landscape settings. Often, conservation managers are reliant on manually derived fire-history mapping products that delineate fire perimeters. An alternative standard approach concerns the application of remote sensing, typically using band combination indices obtained from relatively fine-scale imagery sensors. For Fraser Island, a World Heritage Area in subtropical, fire-prone eastern Australia, we contrast diagnostic fire-regime characteristics for different vegetation types over a 20-year period (1989–2008) as derived from historical manual, and remotely sensed, fire-mapping approaches. For the remote sensing component we adapt a commonly used approach utilising a differenced normalised burn ratio (dNBR) index derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery. Manual mapping resulted in overestimation of fire-affected area (especially large fires) and fire frequency, whereas the dNBR procedure resulted in underestimation of fire-affected area under low fire-severity conditions, and overestimation of fire patchiness. Of significance for conservation management, (1) age class and related distributions for flammable vegetation types differed markedly between the two mapping approaches, (2) regardless, both methods demonstrated that substantial fuel loads had accumulated in flammable vegetation types by the end of the study period and (3) fuel age was shown to have a more significant effect than did seasonality on the incidence of very large (>1000 ha) fires. The study serves as an introduction to ongoing research concerning the measurement and application of fire patchiness to conservation management in flammable eastern Australian vegetation types.

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