Reptile and Arboreal Marsupial Response to Replanted Vegetation in Agricultural Landscapes

Abstract

We report reptile and arboreal marsupial responses to vegetation planting and remnant native vegetation in agricultural landscapes in southeastern Australia. We used a hierarchical survey to select 23 landscapes that varied in the amounts of remnant native vegetation and planted native vegetation. We selected two farms within each landscape. In landscapes with plantings, we selected one farm with and one farm without plantings. We surveyed arboreal marsupials and reptiles on four sites on each farm that encompassed four vegetation types (plantings 7-20 years old, old-growth woodland, naturally occurring seedling regrowth woodland, and coppice [i.e., multistemmed] regrowth woodland). Reptiles and arboreal marsupials were less likely to occur on farms and in landscapes with comparatively large areas of plantings. Such farms and landscapes had less native vegetation, fewer paddock trees, and less woody debris within those areas of natural vegetation. The relatively large area of planting on these farms was insufficient to overcome the lack of these key structural attributes. Old-growth woodland, coppice regrowth, seedling regrowth, and planted areas had different habitat values for different reptiles and arboreal marsupials. We conclude that, although plantings may improve habitat conditions for some taxa, they may not effectively offset the negative effects of native vegetation clearing for all species, especially those reliant on old-growth woodland. Restoring suitable habitat for such species may take decades to centuries.

Benchmark stem densities for forests and woodlands in south-eastern Australia under conditions of relatively little modification by humans since European settlement

“…That the structure of these stands is inherently variable is reflected in the habitat preferences of biota that persist in these ecosystems. Native vegetation is of greatest value to many fauna species in these landscapes if it is spatially heterogeneous (Cunningham et al, 2007(Cunningham et al, , 2008. Forests and woodlands should therefore be managed to reflect the amount and scale of variation that we predicted.…”

Approaches to Landscape Scale Inference and Study Design

“…Furthermore, they can be conducted in a realistic way and on a larger spatial scale in a natural setting and so often provide a wider general inferential framework than a true experiment (e.g. see [38]). Apart from this important and fundamental distinction, quasi-experiments have truly comparable experimental units, including controls, and share many other important design and data structural attributes of a true experiment.…”

“…The hierarchical design encompasses 23 landscapes (with and without restoration plantings, with 12 landscapes in one region and 11 in another), two farms within those 23 landscapes (farms with and without restoration plantings) and four sites located on the 46 farms within the 23 landscapes (comprising plantings and remnant woodland patches) [38]. This design provided a powerful basis from which to make inferences about the impacts of planting on biodiversity at the landscape, farm and site levels [42,43].…”

Natural tree regeneration in agricultural landscapes: The implications of intensification

“…We examined quantitative data on regeneration in four broadscale, medium-term studies in south-eastern Australia: Biodiversity Baseline Monitoring Program ('BBMP'; Michael et al, 2014), South-west Slopes restoration study ('SWS'; Cunningham et al, 2007), Nanangroe study ('Nanangroe'; Lindenmayer et al, 2001), Environmental Stewardship Program ('Stewardship';Lindenmayer et al, 2012) (Fig. 1).…”