Wet Tropics Bioregion Research Articles

The vertebrate fauna of the Clemant State Forest Lowlands: a significant coastal woodland remnant in the southern wet tropics bioregion, Northeastern Queensland

A survey of vertebrate fauna was conducted in the lowlands of Clemant State Forest, a 5430 ha area of land that lies at the southern extremity of the Wet Tropics Bioregion, north of Townsville. The fauna of the area was previously poorly known and few surveys had been undertaken. Two week-long surveys were conducted per year between 1997 and 2002 for each of 31 survey sites comprising 15 regional ecosystems. Survey methods at each site included pitfall-traps, Elliott and cage traps, reptile searches, and one-hectare bird counts. Incidental data were also collected outside sample sites via spotlighting, harp trapping, trip-lines, ultrasonic bat detection, and general observations. A total of 7365 records representing 274 species of vertebrate fauna were recorded, comprising 158 bird species, 20 amphibians, 41 mammals and 55 reptiles. The total number of species including those recorded in other surveys is 294, which represents almost 50% of the vertebrate fauna species identified for the Wet Tropics Bioregion. Fourteen species are listed of conservation significance and several others are of regional significance. Relationships with regional ecosystems were investigated and many species were strongly associated with particular ecosystems. Seasonal variation and adequacy of survey methods were also examined. The results of this survey show that this area is at least as diverse and significant for fauna as any other part of the Wet Tropics (including rainforest). Hobby farming and agriculture is beginning to expand in these southern parts, where native vegetation is currently in good condition. Formation of a system of reserves for this area, as well as changes to the management of private lands, is essential in the very near future in order to prevent irreversible loss of a highly significant flora and fauna.

Climate change in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending environmental catastrophe.

It is now widely accepted that global climate change is affecting many ecosystems around the globe and that its impact is increasing rapidly. Many studies predict that impacts will consist largely of shifts in latitudinal and altitudinal distributions. However, we demonstrate that the impacts of global climate change in the tropical rainforests of northeastern Australia have the potential to result in many extinctions. We develop bioclimatic models of spatial distribution for the regionally endemic rainforest vertebrates and use these models to predict the effects of climate warming on species distributions. Increasing temperature is predicted to result in significant reduction or complete loss of the core environment of all regionally endemic vertebrates. Extinction rates caused by the complete loss of core environments are likely to be severe, nonlinear, with losses increasing rapidly beyond an increase of 2 degrees C, and compounded by other climate-related impacts. Mountain ecosystems around the world, such as the Australian Wet Tropics bioregion, are very diverse, often with high levels of restricted endemism, and are therefore important areas of biodiversity. The results presented here suggest that these systems are severely threatened by climate change.

Kuku—Yalanji Rainforest Aboriginal People and Carbohydrate Resource Management in the Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia

Carbohydrate food sources have emerged as a critical factor limiting occupation of rainforests by hunter—gatherer peoples globally. In the wet tropics bioregion of northeastern Australia, Kuku–Yalanji aboriginal people occupied the rainforests through a hunter–gatherer subsistence economy prior to European occupation. Collaborative environmental research between a researcher at the James Cook University and Kuku–Yalanji people has established that their fire management protected carbohydrate resources in the fire-sensitive rainforests and their margins, and ensured ongoing access to the critical dry season carbohydrate resource, Cycas media, growing in patches of fire-prone open forest on each clan estate. Carbohydrate resources in the wet season were obtained predominantly from seeds of rainforest tree nuts, a high proportion of which are wet tropics endemic species. Several of the genera utilized by aboriginal people in the wet tropics bioregion also occur in the rainforests of eastern Cape York Peninsula, where they were not utilized as foods. It is hypothesized that use of rainforest seeds for carbohydrate is a cultural adaptation that occurred in the wet tropics bioregion, stimulated by the unique availability of the substantial number of large-seeded rainforest trees that are wet tropics endemics. The implications of these data for concepts about the impact of aboriginal fires on Australian rainforests are considered. Aboriginal fires imposed a fine patterning on the vegetation at the local scale, with little effect on the vegetation at the regional scale, which is determined by environmental factors.

Distribution and habitat of the flutenosed batMurina florium(Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in the wet tropics of north-eastern Queensland

The flute-nosed bat Murina florium is a poorly known species that was first discovered in Australia at Mt Baldy State Forest on the Atherton Tablelands in north-eastern Queensland in 198 1. Subsequently there have been few other documented records despite intensive harp trapping studies, with the species only recorded from an additional six localities up until December 1995. This study provides four new locality records for the species, including two records which extend the known southern range limits of M. florium by 150 km across the Herbert River discontinuity within the Wet Tropics bioregion. The broad habitat characteristics of all known localities for the species are reviewed and the paper presents the first account of this bat occurring in non-rainforest habitat Occurrence of M. florium in this habitat is discussed using current knowledge of roosting and ecomorphology characteristics. A predicted distribution of M. florium based on the I I locality records, is calculated using DOMAIN and 16 biophy...