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Using climate change models to inform the recovery of the western ground parrot Pezoporus flaviventris
- Shaun W. Molloy, Allan H. Burbidge, Sarah Comer, Robert A. Davis
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Translocation of species to areas of former habitat after threats have been mitigated is a common conservation action. However, the long-term success of reintroduction relies on identification of currently available habitat and areas that will remain, or become, habitat in the future. Commonly, a short-term view is taken, focusing on obvious and assumed threats such as predators and habitat degradation. However, in areas subject to significant climate change, challenges include correctly identifying variables that define habitat, and considering probable changes over time. This poses challenges with species such as the western ground parrot Pezoporus flaviventris, which was once relatively common in near-coastal south-western Australia, an area subject to major climate change. This species has declined to one small population, estimated to comprise < 150 individuals. Reasons for the decline include altered fire regimes, introduced predators and habitat clearing. The establishment of new populations is a high priority, but the extent to which a rapidly changing climate has affected, and will continue to affect, this species remains largely conjecture, and understanding probable climate change impacts is essential to the prioritization of potential reintroduction sites. We developed high-resolution species distribution models and used these to investigate climate change impacts on current and historical distributions, and identify locations that will remain, or become, bioclimatically suitable habitat in the future. This information has been given to an expert panel to identify and prioritize areas suitable for site-specific management and/or translocation.
Chapter 25 - Fire and biodiversity in Australia
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- By John C. Z. Woinarski, Charles Darwin University, Allan H. Burbidge, Department of Parks and Wildlife, Sarah Comer, Department of Parks and Wildlife, Dan Harley, Threatened Species Biologist, Sarah Legge, Suite 5, 280 Hay St, Subiaco, Western Australia, 6008, David B. Lindenmayer, The Australian National University, Canberra, Thalie B. Partridge, Charles Darwin University
- Edited by Adam Stow, Macquarie University, Sydney, Norman Maclean, University of Southampton, Gregory I. Holwell, University of Auckland
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- Austral Ark
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- 05 November 2014
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- 22 December 2014, pp 537-559
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Summary
Summary
Fire has a major influence on the management and conservation of Australian biodiversity. Notwithstanding a long history of fire on the continent, inappropriate contemporary fire regimes are a key threatening process for many Australian plant and animal species. Fire regimes vary appreciably across the continent, and different species and taxonomic groups respond in markedly different ways to different regimes. A set of case studies highlights the diversity of wildlife responses to fire, although we acknowledge that this set is inevitably far from a comprehensive assessment of the response of all biodiversity components to all fire regimes. Managing fires for biodiversity remains a challenge, particularly in the more remote parts of the continent or when management is driven mostly by human safety and economic assets. Some notable examples of local-and regional-scale fire management programs for biodiversity conservation are presented. Replicating the conservation benefits of these programmes across other parts of Australia will be difficult and will require improved understanding of the fire regimes required by biodiversity, significant effort in implementation and monitoring of outcomes and better understanding of fire by the Australian community.
Introduction
Australia is the most fire-prone continent. Fire has long shaped its ecosystem processes, the juxtaposition and extent of its ecological communities, the structure and floristics of its vegetation types, the ecology of many species, and the distribution, abundance or extinction of individual species. Much of this potency relates to Australian climatic regimes and Australia’s relative lack of topographic relief (and hence protection from extensive fire). Marked wet–dry (monsoonal) seasonality characterises Australia’s north, catalysing frequent (but relatively low-intensity) fire as the annual crop of tall savanna grasses cures during the long dry season. There is marked seasonality also in the Mediterranean and temperate climates of south-eastern and south-western Australia, and their hot summers prompt high-intensity wildfires. Seasonality is less pronounced in the arid inland areas, but recurring but irregular patterns of drought and wet periods drive infrequent but extensive fires as vegetation biomass built up in high-rainfall years dries when the rains disappear. These differences in environmental settings dictate that the frequency and impacts of fires vary very substantially across the Australian continent (Plate 14; Russell-Smith et al. 2007).