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Australia : beautiful world
\"Journey across Australia in this stunning collection of photographs. Charter a yacht in the Whitsundays, camel trek along the beach in Broome and lose yourself in Melbourne's street art-decorated laneways. Then summit Tasmania's Mount Wellington, ride with Queensland's stockmen and women, discover Aboriginal culture and craftwork, and relax with a world-class Riesling in the Clare Valley.\" -- Back cover.
Book
Australasian nature photography
The bioregion of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea possesses a unique natural heritage stretching back over 50 million years since the break-up of the great southern continent of Gondwanaland. The South Australian Museum focuses on enhancing a general knowledge of this extraordinary legacy by encouraging photography of the region's nature and wilderness, and promoting an annual competition to find the Nature Photographer of the Year. Australasian Nature Photography: ANZANG Eighth Collection presents the finest photographs submitted to the competition. Each photograph is accompanied by technical information as well as anecdotes about how the picture was taken, which will stimulate yet further interest in the flora and fauna and their conservation in the region.
eBook
Informal Urban Green-Space: Comparison of Quantity and Characteristics in Brisbane, Australia and Sapporo, Japan
Informal urban green-space (IGS) such as vacant lots, brownfields and street or railway verges is receiving growing attention from urban scholars. Research has shown IGS can provide recreational space for residents and habitat for flora and fauna, yet we know little about the quantity, spatial distribution, vegetation structure or accessibility of IGS. We also lack a commonly accepted definition of IGS and a method that can be used for its rapid quantitative assessment. This paper advances a definition and typology of IGS that has potential for global application. Based on this definition, IGS land use percentage in central Brisbane, Australia and Sapporo, Japan was systematically surveyed in a 10×10 km grid containing 121 sampling sites of 2,500 m2 per city, drawing on data recorded in the field and aerial photography. Spatial distribution, vegetation structure and accessibility of IGS were also analyzed. We found approximately 6.3% of the surveyed urban area in Brisbane and 4.8% in Sapporo consisted of IGS, a non-significant difference. The street verge IGS type (80.4% of all IGS) dominated in Brisbane, while lots (42.2%) and gaps (19.2%) were the two largest IGS types in Sapporo. IGS was widely distributed throughout both survey areas. Vegetation structure showed higher tree cover in Brisbane, but higher herb cover in Sapporo. In both cities over 80% of IGS was accessible or partly accessible. The amount of IGS we found suggests it could play a more important role than previously assumed for residents' recreation and nature experience as well as for fauna and flora, because it substantially increased the amount of potentially available greenspace in addition to parks and conservation greenspace. We argue that IGS has potential for recreation and conservation, but poses some challenges to urban planning. To address these challenges, we propose some directions for future research.
Journal Article
The resilience of a floodplain vegetation landscape
ContextFloodplains are complex adaptive ecosystems that provide an array of ecosystem services. Despite the growing focus on resilience as a fundamental feature of floodplain ecosystems, and as an aim in floodplain management, few studies have quantified the resilience of floodplain landscapes over meaningful timescales.ObjectivesThis study examines the resilience of floodplain vegetation communities over medium (decadal) and long term (multi-decadal) times scales through an analysis of the spatial organisation of different vegetation communities. The floodplain vegetation landscape is conceived as having two basins of attraction represented by; (1). Natural vegetation, which incorporates two domains of flood dependent (FD) and non-flood dependent (NFD) vegetation communities; and, (2). Cleared vegetation (CL).MethodsWe examine change in the spatial organisation of vegetation communities on the Yanga floodplain, located on the Murrumbidgee River, Australia, over a forty-year period (1965–2005). Detailed vegetation community maps, constructed from orthorectified aerial photographs for the years 1965, 1973, 1997 and 2005, were used.ResultsSubstantial changes in the extent and spatial configuration of vegetation communities occurred over the 40-year period. Many changes were bidirectional transitions between FD and NFD vegetation communities, representing transitions in response to variations in flood frequency. However, the predominant unidirectional transition of the FD and NFD vegetation communities were to CL.ConclusionsThe dynamic character of the Yanga Floodplain vegetation landscape is shown by 91 detectable transitions among vegetation community types. Despite large areas of the floodplain vegetation landscape having undergone persistent community change, some areas of the floodplain display resilience over the 40-year period. This suggests floodplain vegetation communities are well adapted to substantial changes in environmental conditions as a result of episodic flooding and drying. However, large net changes and an increase in CL, which did not revert back to previous vegetation community types, suggest a transition to a different basin of attraction, and a loss of system resilience.
Journal Article
Cross-boundary effects of human impacts on animal assemblages in the coastal zone
Human impacts on ecosystems often transcend ecosystem boundaries and environmental realms, complicating ecosystem assessment, conservation, and management. Whether and how different impacts affect ecosystems in distinct but adjacent domains remains untested in many settings, and is rarely tested concurrently at the same spatial scales. In this study, we quantified the effects of coastal urbanisation on the structure of terrestrial coastal vertebrate assemblages (including birds, reptiles and mammals using baited trail cameras) and marine surf zone fish assemblages (using baited underwater videography) at 100 sites along 50 km of beach in eastern Australia. Sites occurred along a gradient of intensities of urban land conversion in the hind dunes. While the effects of urbanisation on the species sampled were pervasive across both ecosystems, the area of urbanised land mattered more for the coastal vertebrates observed, while proximity to urbanised land was more important for the surf zone fish observed. Here, fewer individuals and species of coastal vertebrates were found at sites with a greater extent of urbanised land within 5 km. Conversely, fish assemblages were more diverse in the surf zones abutting urban areas and more abundant at sites approximately 150 m from urbanised land. The spatial properties of these landscapes, including proximity to headlands for coastal vertebrates and reefs for fish, modified the effects of urbanisation. Our findings suggest that urbanisation can have ecologically nuanced effects that are detectable across the land-sea boundary, and stress the importance of landscape context when assessing and conserving animal assemblages in and around coastal cities.
Journal Article
Tropical forest regeneration following land abandonment is driven by primary rainforest distribution in an old pastoral region
CONTEXT: Tropical forest regeneration is increasingly prominent as agro-pastoral lands are abandoned. Regeneration is characterised as favouring ‘marginal’ lands; however, observations of its drivers are often coarse or simple, leaving doubt as to spatial dynamics and causation. OBJECTIVES: We quantified the spatial dynamics of forest regeneration relative to marginality and remnant forest cover in a 3000 km² pastoral region in northern tropical Australia. METHODS: Classification and regression trees related the extent and distribution of regeneration to soil agricultural potential, land-cover history, terrain slope, distance to primary forest, and primary forest fragment size, as defined by aerial photography. RESULTS: Secondary forest extent and distribution overwhelmingly reflect the proximity and size of primary forest fragments. Some 85 % of secondary forest area occurs <1 km of primary forest, and 86 % of secondary forest patches >50 ha are <400 m from primary forest and coincident with historic primary forest fragments. Where primary forest fragments are >8.5 ha, secondary forest area declines less rapidly with increasing distance from primary forest up to 1.5 km. Marginality inferred by soil potential and slope had no bearing on regeneration, except at the coarsest of spatial scales where regeneration is a proxy for primary forest cover. CONCLUSION: Findings underline the need to conserve even modest rainforest patches as propagule reservoirs enabling regeneration. Marginality per se may have a limited role in regeneration. As most secondary forest was an extension of primary forest, its unique conservation value relative to that of primary forest may likewise merit reconsideration.
Journal Article
Determinants and dynamics of banded vegetation pattern migration in arid climates
Dense vegetation bands aligned to contour levels and alternating at regular intervals with relatively barren interbands have been reported at the margins of all tropical deserts. Since their discovery in the 1950s, it has been supposed that these vegetation bands migrate upslope, forming a space-time cyclic pattern. Evidence to date has been relatively sparse and indirect, and observations have remained conflicting. Unequivocal photographic evidence of upslope migration (a few decimeters per year
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is provided here for three independent dryland areas exhibiting periodic banded pattern: (1) the U.S. northeastern Chihuahuan Desert, (2) the Somalian Haud, and (3) the Mediterranean steppes of eastern Morocco. Migration speeds, averaged through time and space using Fourier cross-spectral analysis, are shown to be directly proportional to pattern scale (wavelength). A sequence of aerial photographs of the Chihuahuan Desert showed that migration was not continuous, but intermittent in response to fluctuating weather regimes. The rates at which bands expanded upslope and contracted downslope were better predicted by the change in annual rainfall than by its average level. However, the migration of banded patterns cannot be considered as systematic because in our observations of three other banded systems located in the Somalian Haud, central Australia, and western New South Wales, migration was undetectable at the available image resolution. In each of the six sites under study, the modal value of band orientation axes was verified to be approximately orthogonal to the steepest slope. Our results underscore the importance of taking both the spatial structure and the past climate sequence into account for understanding vegetation dynamics in arid to semiarid ecosystems. In addition, we show how Fourier spectral analysis applied to historical series of optical images can serve to quantify landscape dynamics at a decadal time scale.
Journal Article
Seeing is questioning
I explore the potential utility of visual imagery to engage viewers in connecting ways with dynamic social-ecological contexts. Constructing photographs in response to the mass stranding of birds (shearwaters) on the east coast of Australia in 2013, I demonstrate the potential of wildlife and landscape photography to represent the impacts of environmental change at personal, relational, spatial, and temporal scales simultaneously. In so doing, I suggest that the production and interpretation of photographs can lead to responses that: (1) foster attentive forms of vision in familiar contexts; (2) provoke reflexive self-examination and critiques of broader, complex systems; (3) develop emotional connections with those impacted by social-ecological change; and (4) provide a foundation for precautionary behavioral change in uncertain contexts. Consequently, ‘seeing’ is reconceptualized as questioning, not believing, and as a valuable contribution to learning for sustainability and resilience.
Journal Article
Resilience of trees and the vulnerability of grasslands to climate change in temperate Australian wetlands
ObjectivesObservations from wetlands across the globe suggest a consistent pattern of woody encroachment into wetland grasslands, altering habitat structure and ecological function. The extent to which hydrological changes have contributed to woody invasion of wetland grasslands is unclear. Our objective was to compare rates of woody encroachment in Australian floodplain wetlands between wet and dry hydrological phases. We test the hypothesis that contraction of non-woody wetland vegetation (grasses and rushes) would be concentrated in dry phases, co-incident with recruitment of the River Red Gum Eucalyptuscamaldulensis lower in the floodplain.MethodsWe conduct the first detailed mapping of habitat change in two of the largest forested wetlands in inland Australia, comparing wet and dry hydrological phases. Detailed photogrammetry, supported by extensive ground survey, allowed the interpretation of high resolution aerial photography to vegetation community level.ResultsWe found a consistent pattern of decline in non-woody vegetation, particularly amongst grasses utilising the C4 photosynthetic pathway. The C4 grasses Pseudoraphisspinescens and Paspalumdistichum showed steep declines in the Barmah Millewa and Macquarie Marshes respectively, being replaced by River Red Gum E. camaldulensis. C3 sedges proved more resilient in both systems.ConclusionsOur results suggest that a pattern of tree expansion into non-woody wetland vegetation, characteristic of wetlands across the globe, is a major habitat structural change in the Australian floodplain wetlands studied. Projected hydrological impacts of climate change are likely to further restrict wetland grass foraging habitat in these semi-arid floodplain wetlands.
Journal Article
Monitoring Estuarine Habitats and Threats at a Regional Scale Using Aerial Photography, Object-Based Image Analysis and Deep Learning
Estuarine macrophytes, including seagrass, mangrove, and saltmarsh species, are ecological foundation species that significantly influence biodiversity, ecosystem processes, and provide various cultural and economic benefits. These habitats are, however, facing numerous threats from human disturbances which operate over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Effective management of estuarine macrophytes requires an understanding of their spatial distributions, the disturbances that threaten them, and how these may be changing over time. Here we describe how high-resolution aerial imagery combined with object-based image analysis (OBIA) and deep learning is being used to understand ecological changes and inform management of threats in estuaries in New South Wales, Australia. Although the full extent of threats to macrophytes may be widespread, the individual disturbances can occur over small areas, for example shading from jetties and pontoons, scour from boat mooring chains and offroad vehicle damage to saltmarshes, meaning that high resolution mapping is required. User and producer accuracy of the maps was > 90% for almost all habitat types; the high accuracy for subtidal seagrasses was due in part to strict image capture requirements and extensive field validation. This mapping technique is well suited for using the same imagery for mapping subtidal and intertidal estuarine macrophytes, some of which occurs in small patches or narrow fringing bands. Examples are provided to demonstrate how data generated from these maps can be used and some of the possible limitations are discussed.
Journal Article