National Parks and Wildlife Service

Abstract Feral foxes Vulpes vulpes are a major threat to Australian wildlife and assessing the success of control programs requires comparison of abundance before and after control. While camera traps are often used to assess fox activity, estimating abundance is difficult due to the inability to distinguish individuals requiring an “unmarked” methodology. We tested the “simultaneous count method” which requires samples to be independent during the sampling period, that is, 24 h, while allowing lack of independence between sampling periods. This enables repeat detections of animals to estimate abundance. We tested the method on camera data collected over 5 years at Oolambeyan National Park, New South Wales, during a fox control program and conclude that the method has merit. We were able to statistically measure an effect of change in abundance from a median of 57 to 2, however, estimation of detectability was erratic.

Background The Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) was implemented operationally throughout Australia in September 2022, providing calculation of fire danger forecasts based on peer-reviewed fire behaviour models. The system is modular and allows for ongoing incorporation of new scientific research and improved datasets. Aims Prior to operational implementation of the AFDRS, a Research Prototype (AFDRSRP), described here, was built to test the input data and systems and evaluate the performance and potential outputs. Methods Fire spread models were selected and aligned with fuel types in a process that captured bioregional variation in fuel characteristics. National spatial datasets were created to identify fuel types and fire history in alignment with existing spatial weather forecast layers. Key results The AFDRSRP demonstrated improvements over the McArthur Forest and Grass Fire Danger systems due to its use of improved fire behaviour models, as well as more accurately reflecting the variation in fuels. Conclusions The system design was robust and allowed for the incorporation of updates to the models and datasets prior to implementation of the AFDRS.

Being able to identify, map and monitor areas of different ecological quality of peatland habitats, or ecotypes, provides important information on spatial peatland condition, the potential for restoration of degraded areas and ecotype carbon (C) emission and/or sequestration capacity when coupled with known C-flux factors. Regular and accurate mapping of such ecotypes is also a requirement under the European Union (EU) Habitats Directive, and will be required in some form to help guide the framework and implementation of the upcoming EU Nature Restoration Law.Although the most precise way to identify the presence of certain ecotypes is via in-situ surveying, this approach clearly suffers from scaling issues, as it is only feasible in small selected peatlands (or even portions of them) and requires a lot of resources, e.g. skilled domain experts and time. A solution might come from remote sensing and Earth Observation technologies, which have been increasingly utilised to map the occurrence and extent of peatland environments in recent years. With this respect, the European Space Agency's Copernicus Program's Sentinel-2 satellite constellation could be a viable data source, as it allows for a multi-spectral, systematic and regular coverage of land surfaces with a spatial resolution up to 10 square metres and 5 days of revisit frequency. Nevertheless, the remote detection and mapping of ecotypes within the peatland complex itself is relatively under-studied and there is no currently accepted method that can be deployed at landscape scale. In this work we present a rather simple machine learning pipeline for ecotype detection at scale. The focus of this study are lowland peatlands, or raised bogs, in the Republic of Ireland. The pipeline assumes the existence of ground truth ecotype data (for machine learning training purposes), raised bogs map boundaries (shapefiles) and Sentinel-2 imagery. Both training, testing and validation datasets undergo the same pre-processing procedure. In the training step we train an ensemble of binary classifiers - specifically one multilayer perceptron network per ecotype - organised in a hierarchical fashion, to reduce the complexity of the problem. The ecotype classification would be done in a cascade - in accordance with the hierarchy - via canonical ensemble learning classification. The preliminary results gathered not only seems to indicate that our approach could provide reliable estimations about raised bog ecotype composition at scale, they also highlight the potential need for seasonal ensembles. Furthermore, we will present the results of a crowdsourcing experiment, in which domain experts were: (1) presented with ecotype map images, resulting from the inference of a plethora of ensemble classifiers of different settings and hyperparameters, and (2) asked to cast a vote on which image most closely resembled the related ground truth image.

Fens, in their natural states, are characterized by rich biodiversity and high carbon and water storage, playing a major role in providing several important ecosystem services. However, most fens in Europe were drained in the past for agriculture, leading to degradation and a reduction of their multifunctionality. While restoration, primarily through rewetting, is gaining prominence in Europe, there are substantial knowledge gaps in understanding spatial landscape and ecosystem processes in these environments, rendering successful restoration or rehabilitation of functions challenging. Determining peat properties and their relation to soil surface processes at small scales is key to revealing different pathways that ecosystem recovery may take, not only in terms of carbon storage but also hydrophysical functioning. In the absence of long-term monitoring of fen peatlands, both pre- and post-rewetting, drained and rewetted paired comparison studies are the next best approach to study the effects of drainage and rewetting and how degraded peatlands differ from their near-natural counterparts. Here, we compare the spatial structures of peat properties, such as soil moisture content, soil organic matter, and carbonate content, in a drained and a rewetted fen peatland in Ireland and investigate how surface microtopography influences such properties. This is done by constructing variograms and investigating the differences in range, partial sill, and nugget-to-sill ratio. Overall, soil properties in the near-natural fen show much lower spatial autocorrelation based on nugget-to-sill ratios, and these properties reach autocorrelation range at much shorter distances compared to those of the drained site. This indicates that the drained site is more homogeneous in terms of soil properties compared to the near-natural fen. The bivariate autocorrelation between the different soil properties and surface microtopography is much stronger in the drained site compared to the rewetted site, indicating that surface microtopography plays a larger role in controlling ecosystem processes in drained peatlands than in the near-natural fens. Our results highlight the importance of spatial peat sampling at short intervals for small-scale processes and for the identification of carbon storage hotspots and formulation of appropriate monitoring scale and plan.

The cool temperate rainforests of eastern Australia are at risk from anthropogenic climate change with predicted changes in temperature, rainfall, severe weather, basal cloud layer, and droughts. Phenology and litter production are fundamental reproductive and growth processes to document in any ecosystem, yet very few long-term studies exist in Australian rainforests. In this study, long-term datasets are used to describe different phenological and litter production behaviours of tree species in a Nothofagus cool temperate rainforest in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, analysing seasonal and inter-annual climate drivers. Leaf fall at the community level was mostly influenced by Nothofagus moorei, driven by temperature and wind speed, and Ceratopetalum apetalum, driven by temperature, rainfall, and solar radiation. Mean dates of leaf fall at the community level were found to be advancing, correlated with an advance in solar radiation. We also analysed in detail the flowering behaviour of the dominant canopy tree species, N. moorei, which masts with a mean inter-flowering period of 3–4 years in 65% of flowering events. Three of the studied species presented mast flowering, C. apetalum, N. moorei, and Orites excelsus; however, they did not mast in the same years. All species presented strong seasonality in their phenological activity, but seasonality peaked in different months, and were driven by varied climate variables. Supra-annual peaks of flowering and fruiting did not occur at the same time for all species, and climate drivers of inter-annual phenological behaviour were different for each species. Our results show that projected changes in climate will affect species from cool temperate rainforests differently, affecting not only biomass production, but also species reproductive output and forest dynamics.

Tree hollows are an important landscape resource used by fauna for shelter, nesting, and predator avoidance. In fire-prone landscapes, wildfire and climate may impact hollow dynamics; however, assessments of their concurrent impacts are rare. We conducted a field survey at 80 sites in the Sydney Basin bioregion (Australia) to understand how fire frequency, fire severity, mean annual temperature, and mean annual precipitation concurrently impacted the site-density of small- (<5 cm entry width), medium- (5–10 cm entry width) and large-size (>10 cm entry width) tree hollows and tree basal scars (which mediate hollow formation via invertebrate access to heartwood), when tree-size and dead/live status were considered. A unimodal relationship occurred between medium- and large-sized hollow densities and fire frequency and severity, respectively, with hollow densities greatest at intermediate frequencies/severities. Increases of 1.82, 1.43, and 1.17 hollows per site were observed between the 1 (reference) and 2, 2 and 3, and 3 and >3 fire frequency categories. Increases of 1.26, 1.75 and 0.75 hollows per site were observed between the low (reference) and moderate, moderate and high, and high and very high fire severity categories. Fire severity was also positively associated with basal scar density, with increases of 2.52, 8.15, and 8.47 trees per site between the low (reference) and moderate, moderate and high, and high and very high categories. A weak positive and stronger negative association was observed between mean annual temperature and small-sized hollow and basal scar density, respectively. Dead and medium-sized tree density was positively associated with medium-sized hollow and basal scar tree density, respectively. Collectively, our results suggest that wildfires, and in some cases climate, have diverse and size-specific impacts on tree hollow and basal scar density. Our results imply that fire regimes that allow for moderately severe wildfire will promote larger-sized tree hollows, which are a limiting resource for many fauna species.

Former mine sites can provide habitat for many rare specialised bryophyte species that have adapted to metal-rich soil conditions that are toxic to most other plant species. Some of the bryophyte species found in this habitat are facultative metallophytes, and others are regarded as strict metallophytes, the so-called 'copper mosses'. It is a general assumption in the literature that Cephaloziella nicholsonii and C. massalongoi, both categorised as Endangered in the IUCN Red List for Europe, are also strict metallophytes and obligate copper bryophytes. This in vitro experiment investigated the growth and gemma production of these two species from different sites in Ireland and Britain on treatment plates of 0 ppm, 3 ppm, 6 ppm, 12 ppm, 24 ppm, 48 ppm and 96 ppm copper. Results show that elevated copper is not an obligate requirement for optimum growth. Differences in response to the copper treatment levels among populations evident within both species could possibly be due to ecotypic variation. A case is also made for the taxonomic revision of the Cephaloziella genus. Implications for the species' conservation are discussed.

Abstract There is a growing body of research documenting Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities' observations of changes in climate. The accuracy, efficacy, and transferability of this research depends on its motives and methods. In this paper, we report on research to produce a working knowledge of changes in climate and its impacts on local biophysical systems in the Tiwi Islands in Northern Australia. Interviews with 52 Tiwi people were combined with diverse forms of aerial data to produce a nuanced understanding of climate change in these remote islands. These data show changes in climate‐sensitive biophysical systems that would otherwise remain undetected by instruments conventionally used for monitoring climate change. These include changes in shorelines, which are causing concerns about damage to buildings that are important for Tiwi well‐being, and changes in the marine environment and wetlands, which are causing concerns about damage to natural heritage. We discuss the implications of these findings, arguing that systematic observations collected by networks of people “on Country” can provide excellent monitoring of climate change impacts, and that Indigenous people's interests in the effects of climate change overlap with those of non‐Indigenous people, as do their rights to support from the State for adaptation.

Determining species’ distributions is challenging for cryptic species that are difficult to detect using standard techniques. The mallee worm-lizard (Aprasia inaurita Kluge, 1974) is a cryptic reptile in the family Pygopodidae, listed as Endangered in New South Wales. We modelled the species’ potential distribution (Maxent) to improve understanding of the species’ distribution and surveyed potential habitat in the Scotia Mallee region (an area with suitable habitat) from 2018 to 2022, with pitfall traps and artificial refuges (terracotta roof tiles). We completed 11 587 pitfall trap-nights and 3200 tile checks over eight monitoring sessions. Over this period, we detected six vertebrate species (all lizards) using roof tiles and 40 species with pitfall traps, but no mallee worm-lizards. Evaluation of existing records of the mallee worm-lizard from NSW suggested that the state constitutes the north-eastern edge of its continental range, with the species apparently present in low numbers across a wide swathe of south-western NSW. Most records were located within or near to spinifex or porcupine grass (Triodia spp.) communities, on private land. Species distribution modelling provided outputs that are useful for spatial prioritisation of conservation efforts for the species, with region-wide maps showing that much of the Scotia Mallee study area contains potentially suitable habitat for the mallee worm-lizard. However, habitat suitability scores for individual cells in this area were low, in some instances, because of high maximum summer temperatures and soil available water capacity. We anticipate that increasing temperatures associated with climate change may further reduce the suitability of habitat in this area in the future.

Calcareous fens are peat-wetlands fed mainly by groundwater, located in topographic hollows and served by springs or seepages of water derived by contact with base-rich mineral ground. In the European Union they are protected habitats requiring special conservation measures. To better understand the environmental supporting conditions of alkaline fen habitat found in Ireland, a 2-years hydrological and hydrochemical monitoring programme was carried out on four contrasting fen sites that covered an ecohydrological gradient representing intact to highly degraded conditions. This paper presents a methodology (and its limitations) of how the evaluation of the temporal and spatial variability of the quality and hydrological dynamics associated with different representative vegetation communities within the four fens can be used to develop ecohydrological metrics for fen habitat. The conditions supporting fen habitat in “good” ecological condition, indicative of a functioning alkaline habitat, were determined and contrasted with conditions found in habitats deemed to be in “poor” ecological condition. Results indicate that an annual water level always above the ground surface within a threshold depth envelope of between 0.030 and 0.28 m is required for at least 60% of the year for healthy fen vegetation. In terms of hydrochemistry, higher concentrations of nutrients were found in the sediments at depth and the groundwater feed compared to the phreatic water table. This suggests the fens may be incorporating the incoming nutrients into their internal biogeochemical cycles and that there is a net accumulation of nutrients within the wetlands. Although envelopes of nutrient concentrations in the surface water of the fen associated with habitat in good ecological condition can be defined (e.g., dissolved reactive phosphorus concentrations of between 6 and 37 µg-P/l for PF1 habitat), these levels should be regarded as the water quality after the fen vegetation has effectively interacted with the higher incoming nutrient levels in the groundwater. Moreover, the local hydrogeological conditions that define groundwater pathways (and associated water quality impacts) in such calcareous fens, allied to the localized nature of these measurements in these field studies, makes it difficult to define groundwater water quality threshold values with any confidence.