October 19, 2011

Forests struggling to survive in southwest Western Australia

You may have seen some of the recent publicity about Jarrah deaths which was based on research carried out at by Centre researchers together with staff from the Department of Environment and Conservation. It is a confronting time for everybody who cares about the health of our forests. Our challenge is not to lose heart as we think about the severity and scale of the problem. We must work together to study, adapt and address the causes of these kinds of situations!

Check out this news story which was aired last night on the ABC, featuring our very own Giles Hardy and George Matusick.

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September 29, 2011

Climate Talk: Join the Conversation on October 14!

Climate change as presented in the current media can be characterized as rather toxic. Universities provide a space to explore multiple perspectives and think critically and creatively about ways to confront and live with climate change into the future.

The Murdoch University Climate Change Teaching Network is proud to present Climate Talk. This is a free, half-day event for students, staff and the wider community. The event will showcase teaching about climate change, provide opportunities for researchers and teachers to connect and provide space for conversation about the dilemmas and burning issues related to climate change. For research centers such as the Centre of Excellence for Climate Change Woodland and Forest Health, Climate Talk provides an opportunity to enthuse students and their teachers to engage in research. For students and teachers, this opportunity to meet with researchers might lead to cutting edge, interdisciplinary honours or masters projects, in a geographical area that is already obtaining international attention for its wide-scale forest decline as a consequence of drought and other environmental changes.

The program for the day will include:


12.00   Climate change teaching and research nexus  workshop

14.00   Dystopia  – a play by Moody Theatre

14.15    Climate Q&A

16.00   Sundowner

All day  Tackling Climate Change Creative Exhibition

For details of this event visit http://www.istp.murdoch.edu.au/ISTP/seminars/ClimateTalk2011.html or contact Dr Davina Boyd / telephone 0415912211 if you would like to be involved or have any queries.

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September 12, 2011

Landscape ecology: A useful framework to tackle the complex issues surrounding climate change and the health of our woodlands and forests

By Niels Brouwers

I have recently attended the 8th World Congress of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) in Beijing, China. I have been a member of this organisation since the start of my academic career. The concept of landscape ecology appeals to me because of its breadth and integrative nature. It takes a holistic approach in the way we look, live and interact with our “landscape”, and incorporates theories and concepts from both the natural and social sciences. Landscape ecology is unique as a discipline in terms of how it looks at the system under study. It recognises that different elements in the landscape, like forest patches, agricultural land and urban areas, are not contained but interact with each other. It further recognises that landscapes and ecosystems are heterogeneous, consisting of different components unevenly distributed across space, and are continuously changing over time. These characteristics make it a unique discipline within ecology.

It has been argued that in order to work together as scientists, practitioners and the general public, a strategy needs to be developed that can unite our different ways of thinking. To have a framework that people understand and agree upon would be a big step forward in our mission to make our woodlands and forests a place we can enjoy now and in the future.

Within the separate research disciplines there are only few that aim to integrate knowledge and have a sufficient spatial scope that can address large scale issues such as climate change. Landscape ecology is a research discipline that aims to do just that!

Landscape ecological concepts and tools can help us understand the processes that are taking place across the southwest of Western Australia. For instance, technological tools like geographical information systems (GIS) can be used to view and analyse the landscape across scales. The increasing availability of satellite and other airborne imagery has greatly facilitated the advancements in landscape ecology. Now we can use these products and tools to monitor and see our environment change over time. We can see what is happening, when it has happened, and where. This enables us to allocate our resources to the right places and perform more in-depth investigations on the ground to see what climate change is doing and what we potentially can do about it. Using digital maps is further a great way of showing what is going on around us (see picture). We can now potentially investigate and show what is going on in our back garden, our local nature reserve, or the forests across the southwest and beyond.

Climate change does not discriminate so equally will impact on all these separate landscape elements. We will have to accept that the southwest of WA is likely to become drier and hotter over time. Integrating our knowledge on what this will mean for our living environment and beyond is a challenge we have to face. We have to start this process now to be able to make a difference. Landscape ecology might just be the framework we can use to unite our different ways of thinking and come up with sustainable solutions. It would be great to hear your thoughts on this, i.e. if you think that a landscape ecological framework might be a good way of addressing these issues.

Map_GE_Landscape_complexity_Bungendore_Common

A great way to explore the the landscape is using Google Earth (free download http://www.google.com/earth/index.html ). This image shows the area surrounding Armadale/Bedfordale. The green outlines are indicating parks and recreational areas. This clearly shows the complexities of the landscape, particularly between urban and ‘green’ areas, with small recreational areas dotted throughout, and larger natural forested areas intersecting and bordering the urban areas.

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August 26, 2011

Forest and Woodland Health Symposium

Please register here, early bird registration closes Friday September 2nd!

Link to PDF:
Healthy Forests Symposium 2011 Flyer

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July 8, 2011

Challenges to restoration

By Katinka X. Ruthrof  and Leonie E. Valentine

Excerpt from: Ruthrof, K. X. and Valentine, L. E. (2010) Ecological, economic and social challenges, restoration filters and planning for the unknown. Australasian Plant Conservation 19 (3) 34-35.

Since European settlement, large areas of Australia have been degraded by various anthropogenic disturbances. This large-scale degradation has lead to a growing desire from the community, conservationists, scientists and land managers to develop techniques to restore these areas. However, restoration faces a range of ecological, economic and social challenges.

Ecological challenges encountered in broadscale restoration include basic, on-ground issues such as the availability of propagules, the ability to germinate a large range of species, successful control techniques for invasive species (pre and post restoration), and choice of species available (functional types, keystone species, faunal requirements, palatability and competitive ability). There are also the emerging challenges of a reduction in rainfall, higher temperatures, and perhaps a higher risk of frost events. Such ecological challenges are technical constraints, and although significant, is only part of the problem (Geist and Galatowitsch 1999).

Financial resources made available for restoration are often quite limited. Therefore, expensive machinery or propagules (e.g. some species can reach prices of $4/gm) may be out of reach of some projects. The longer term significance of some species—the use of cheap annual species versus more expensive perennials—is also important, and restorationists must determine the best long-term ecological ‘bang for your buck’. Given these ecological and economic challenges, the resultant vegetation community may be very different from the one practitioners had in mind at the planning stages of the project.

Restoration projects face an additional array of social-political challenges. These include choosing which site will be restored, the goals and values for that site, the amount of community support, personal preferences, and the amount of time and labour available to the project, especially in the long term. These are primarily human challenges, and unless overcome, ongoing commitment from land managers, practitioners and the community to restoration projects will likely be limited and it will not be possible to undertake larger scale restoration.

The community is often seen as a group of individuals for use as cheap labour. However, commitment to, and success of, restoration projects could be increased by development of a beneficial relationship between humans and the natural environment. There are various benefits of community involvement in restoration, including the involvement of hard working, enthusiastic people with a depth of local knowledge, experience and a sense of stewardship that can drive the sustained support for restoration. Benefits of restoration to the community are also broad-ranging and include restoring community spirit and improving agency-community relations as well as providing psychological and physiological benefits.

Restoration projects, particularly on public lands, may be more successful in the long term when the community, restoration ecologists, managers and practitioners create an evolving restoration plan together. Perhaps working together in the early stages of planning a restoration project will enhance the filter for the benefit of both the restoration area and the community involved.

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June 19, 2011

Flooded gum, leafminers and fire

By Katherine Edwards

In a previous post, Jodi Wildy raised concerns about the health of Flooded Gum, on her land in Boyup Brook and elsewhere. George Matusick has shared his ideas about the role of psyllids in the decline, and below Katherine Edwards, on the basis of her master’s studies, pays attention to some other factors that she thinks may be important explanatory factors.

Thank you Jodi for bringing the important issue of Flooded Gum decline into the spotlight! Relatively little research has been conducted into the causes behind the extensive Flooded Gum decline. Research that has been conducted has tended to focus on the role that phloem-feeding insects (PFI) may be playing in the decline. While George has given abundant information on the psyllids, I wanted to comment on the Perthida leafminer, another important PSI that is abundant on Flooded Gum. An important factor of the history between Flooded Gum and the Flooded Gum species of the Perthida leafminer, is that the abundance and distribution of the leafminer seem to have increased since their first records in the late 1800’s according to a study of herbarium collections. The authors of that study suggested that the increases were linked to the governmental changes to Aboriginal fire regimes around that were in place since the 1850’s, the hypothesis being that Aboriginal burning regimes produced more crown scorch which would kill larvae and abscise the leaves that would have been their food source, and the change to the European burning regime reduced this population control mechanism. The Aboriginal fire regime, compared to the European regime, involved frequent burning of bushland areas with intensity sufficient to reach and scorch the crowns. The European burning regime involved an era (1856-1920) of uncontrolled, intense fires caused by settlers, followed by an era (1921-1965) of fire suppression, followed by the current era (1966-present) of wildfire suppression and prescribed burning.

PFI are an important factor in the decline aetiology of Flooded Gum but, from my observations and the research I have read, are one factor in a complex decline. Fire and understory disturbance may also be important but I fear that changes to rainfall may be the main driver behind this decline, causing the stress that renders the species more susceptible to the horde of organisms (PSI’s, Phytophthora species, heart-rot fungi, mistletoe’s, boring beetles, termites, e.t.c.) that feed on this species.

The decline of Flooded Gum presents some exciting opportunities for further research into ecological interactions, the effect that a changing climate is having on South-Western Australian Eucalypts and the primary cause of the decline of an iconic keystone species. This is one species I am not prepared to lose in the shift to the novel ecosystem state, it is far too important!

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June 8, 2011

Challenges to biodiversity conservation in urban bushland

Leonie Stubbs, Coordinator, Friends of Paganoni Swamp

MonitorPlots_Seeders

Following a prescribed burn of approximately 90 hectares at Paganoni Swamp Reserve, Katinka, her business manager Annora, myself and Norm (members of Friends of Paganoni Swamp) spent a glorious Friday morning placing markers and erecting seed collectors at thirteen ashbed and control sites. These activities are contributing to research into tuart regeneration following fire that is one of a number of studies being undertaken to improve our knowledge of the impacts of such burns on tuart woodland. Paganoni Swamp Reserve has not been burned for over thirty years and when the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) advised that a burn was to take place, staff from Urban Nature (a division of DEC) arranged for all those with an interest in the reserve to meet to discuss how best to obtain the greatest benefit from the burn from an adaptive management perspective. This ranged from those with an interest in weeds, flora, tuart regeneration, the impact on fauna and bird species as well as those working in the reserve such as our Friends group and Regional Parks.

Whilst the pros and cons of prescribed burns can be debated ad infinitum, the protection of biodiversity at Paganoni Swamp Reserve should be the ultimate goal for its managers. The reserve is in good condition as it has been relatively isolated until infrastructure and urban development gradually surrounded it over the past seven years. Only the southern boundary retains unconstricted access to southern swamps and lakes and this area will be developed for housing in the near future. Add to this a drying climate and the ongoing survival of the reserve’s flora and fauna face significant threats. Our goal should be to ameliorate these threats and our Friends group hopes that the research being undertaken from the burn will assist in these endeavours, and that the research outcomes will provide the basis for future management decisions on burning practices at Paganoni Swamp Reserve.

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