Do habitat fragmentation and fire influence variation of plant species composition, structure and diversity within three regional ecosystems on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia?

Etherington, Rohan; Shapcott, Alison

doi:10.1071/bt13232

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(112 reference statements)

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“…Our study compared biogeographical provinces (subregions) for their diversity so reduced the effect of one of these factors. Other studies of SE Queensland rainforest also found no significant relationship between diversity and habitat area [ 79 ]. Turner and Tjørve [ 78 ] suggest that habitat diversity influences species diversity at all spatial scales.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Mapping Biodiversity and Setting Conservation Priorities for SE Queensland’s Rainforests Using DNA Barcoding

Shapcott

Forster²,

Guymer³

et al. 2015

PLoS ONE

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Australian rainforests have been fragmented due to past climatic changes and more recently landscape change as a result of clearing for agriculture and urban spread. The subtropical rainforests of South Eastern Queensland are significantly more fragmented than the tropical World Heritage listed northern rainforests and are subject to much greater human population pressures. The Australian rainforest flora is relatively taxonomically rich at the family level, but less so at the species level. Current methods to assess biodiversity based on species numbers fail to adequately capture this richness at higher taxonomic levels. We developed a DNA barcode library for the SE Queensland rainforest flora to support a methodology for biodiversity assessment that incorporates both taxonomic diversity and phylogenetic relationships. We placed our SE Queensland phylogeny based on a three marker DNA barcode within a larger international rainforest barcode library and used this to calculate phylogenetic diversity (PD). We compared phylo- diversity measures, species composition and richness and ecosystem diversity of the SE Queensland rainforest estate to identify which bio subregions contain the greatest rainforest biodiversity, subregion relationships and their level of protection. We identified areas of highest conservation priority. Diversity was not correlated with rainforest area in SE Queensland subregions but PD was correlated with both the percent of the subregion occupied by rainforest and the diversity of regional ecosystems (RE) present. The patterns of species diversity and phylogenetic diversity suggest a strong influence of historical biogeography. Some subregions contain significantly more PD than expected by chance, consistent with the concept of refugia, while others were significantly phylogenetically clustered, consistent with recent range expansions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Mapping Biodiversity and Setting Conservation Priorities for SE Queensland’s Rainforests Using DNA Barcoding

Shapcott

Forster²,

Guymer³

et al. 2015

PLoS ONE

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“…Inselberg floras are often reported as refuge areas for species unadapted to fire, and these findings support this concept (Heinze et al 1997;Lawler et al 1998;Hopper 2000;Hunter 2003bHunter , 2016. Species richness per plot (density) is often used as a surrogate for understanding the potential benefits of fire to the biodiversity of a community (Russell and Parsons 1978, Clarke 1988, Ross et al 2002, Etherington and Shapcott 2014. The results presented here would suggest caution in using richness per plot as a sole surrogate or reason to implement strategic fire on inselbergs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

The Effects of Fire and Manual Biomass Removal on the Vegetation of Granite Inselbergs

Hunter

2017

fire ecol

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The vegetation on granite inselbergs (island mountains) within the New England Bioregion of eastern Australia and the adjacent matrix were chosen as subjects in this study on the effects of aboveground biomass removal on community recovery. Undisturbed inselberg vegetation was treated by manual removal of biomass through clipping and also by burning. Inselbergs and the adjacent matrix that had been burned the previous year were also treated to an additional burn. The recovery of vegetation was measured over the following year across all experiments. The change in vegetation composition was analyzed using Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA), Generalized Linear Modeling (GLM), and variance partitioning of Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) results, along with SIMPER and PERMANO-VA analysis of composition difference and treatment interactions. Species turnover between start and end points of monitoring was also tested for significance between treatments. Comparison of floristic composition before experimentation and at the end point (12 months later) indicated that a single clipping of biomass had little statistical effect on inselberg floristic composition. In contrast, previously unburned inselbergs treated by fire did not recov-RESUMEN

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“…The set of silica dried samples used for this study comprised 255 samples and 130 samples from other collections made from a variety of previous collections undertaken by the Shapcott lab and held at the University the Sunshine Coast [16,17,67]. DNA was extracted from 385 samples following the methods used by Shapcott [17].…”

Section: Dna Barcoding and Sequence Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA Barcoding to Enhance Conservation of Sunshine Coast Heathlands

et al. 2022

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Conservation priorities and decisions can be informed by understanding diversity patterns and the evolutionary history of ecosystems, and phylogenetic metrics can contribute to this. This project used a range of diversity metrics in concert to examine diversity patterns in the Sunshine Coast heathlands, an ecosystem under intense pressure. The species richness and composition of 80 heathland sites over nine regional ecosystems of heathland on the Sunshine Coast were enhanced with phylogenetic metrics, determined by barcoding 366 heath species of the region. The resulting data were added to an existing phylogeny of regional rainforest species. The diversity metrics for sites and regional ecosystems were compared using univariate and multivariate statistics. The phylogeny from this study, and the low phylogenetic diversity of the heathlands, is consistent with the theory that heath species evolved on the fringes on a wider Australian rainforest flora. Distinctive heathland communities were highlighted, and the existence of geographically scattered, but compositionally similar, phylogenetically even sites points to a possible “refugial environment”, characterised by moisture and instability. This suggests contrasting conservation implications: the protection of distinctive communities but also the management of the dynamic processes in other wet and alluvial “refugial environments”. The potential for more focused conservation priorities is enhanced.

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Do habitat fragmentation and fire influence variation of plant species composition, structure and diversity within three regional ecosystems on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia?

Cited by 7 publications

References 59 publications

Mapping Biodiversity and Setting Conservation Priorities for SE Queensland’s Rainforests Using DNA Barcoding

Mapping Biodiversity and Setting Conservation Priorities for SE Queensland’s Rainforests Using DNA Barcoding

The Effects of Fire and Manual Biomass Removal on the Vegetation of Granite Inselbergs

DNA Barcoding to Enhance Conservation of Sunshine Coast Heathlands

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