Beautiful, rare ‘purple cauliflower’ coral off NSW coast may be extinct within 10 years

Author supplied

Meryl Larkin, Southern Cross University; David Harasti, Southern Cross University; Steve Smith, Southern Cross University, and Tom R DavisWhen we think of Australia’s threatened corals, the Great Barrier Reef probably springs to mind. But elsewhere, coral species are also struggling – including a rare type known as “cauliflower soft coral” which is, sadly, on the brink of extinction.

This species, Dendronephthya australis, looks like a purple cauliflower due to its pink-lilac stems and branches, crowned with white polyps.

The coral primarily occurs at only a few sites in Port Stephens, New South Wales, and is a magnet for divers and underwater photographers. But sand movements, boating and fishing have reduced the species’ population dramatically.

Recent flooding in NSW compounded the problem – in fact, it may have reduced the remaining coral population by 90%. Our recent research found cauliflower soft coral may become extinct in the next decade unless we urgently protect and restore it.

An ovulid on a cauliflower coral colony. Such coral may be extinct within a decade.
Author supplied

Lilac underwater gardens

Cauliflower soft corals are predominantly found in estuarine environments on sandy seabeds with high current flow. They rely on tidal currents to transport plankton on which they feed.

The species is most commonly found in the Port Stephens estuary, about 200 kilometres north of Sydney. It’s also found in the Brisbane Water estuary in NSW, and has been found sporadically in other locations south to Jervis Bay.

The coral colonies form aggregations or “gardens”. At Port Stephens, these gardens are the preferred habitat for the endangered White’s seahorse and protected species of pipefish. They also support juvenile Australasian snapper, an important species for commercial and recreational fishers.

In recent months, the cauliflower soft coral has been listed as endangered in NSW and nationally.

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Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters. History tells us this could trigger a mass extinction event

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An alarming decline

Scientists first mapped the distribution of the cauliflower soft coral in 2011. They found none of the biggest colonies in the Port Stephens estuary were protected by “no take” zones – areas where fishing and other extractive activities are banned.

In research in 2016, we found a sharp decline in the extent and distribution of cauliflower soft coral.

Our recent study examined the problem in more detail. It involved mapping the southern shoreline of Port Stephens, using an underwater camera towed by a vessel.

We found the cauliflower soft coral in the Port Stephens estuary has declined by almost 70% over just eight years. It now occurs over 9,300 square metres – down from 28,600 square metres in 2011.

Our subsequent modelling sought to identify what was driving the corals’ decline. We found a correlation between coral loss and sand movements over the last decade.

Human changes to shorelines, such as marina developments, have changed the dynamic of currents across the estuary. For example, previous research found a large influx of sand from the western end of Shoal Bay smothered cauliflower soft coral colonies at two nearby locations. As of 2018, those colonies had disappeared completely.

While diving as part of the project, we identified other causes of damage to the coral. Dropped boat anchors and the installation of moorings had damaged some colonies. Others were injured after becoming entangled in fishing line.

It is possible that disease, and pollution or other water quality issues, may also be contributing to the species’ decline.

Fishing line damaging a colony of cauliflower soft coral in Port Stephens.
Author supplied

Then the floods hit

Some 18 months after our most recent mapping, cauliflower soft corals suffered yet another blow. Major flooding in NSW in March this year caused a massive amount of fresh water to discharge from the Karuah River into the Port Stephens estuary, where sea water is dominant. Fresh water can kill cauliflower soft corals.

Following the floods, we conducted exploratory dives at locations where the cauliflower soft corals had been thriving at Port Stephens. We found much of the coral had disintegrated and disappeared. In fact, we estimated as much as 90% of the remaining cauliflower soft coral population was gone.

We plan to remap the estuary in the coming weeks, and feel confident our initial estimates will be close to the mark. If so, this means less than 5% of the species area mapped in 2011 now remains.

The floods also devastated kelp forests and other canopy-forming habitats in the estuary. Further work by scientists at the NSW Department of Primary Industries is underway to quantify these losses and monitor the recovery.

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Sydney’s disastrous flood wasn’t unprecedented: we’re about to enter a 50-year period of frequent, major floods

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Monitoring of existing cauliflower coral aggregations is ongoing.
Author supplied

Urgent work required

The cauliflower soft coral urgently needs protecting. This will require ongoing, coordinated research and management.

Clearly, action must be taken to reduce threats such as anchoring, fishing, and development that may magnify sand movement.

Best-practice rehabilitation is also needed. This may involve rearing the coral off-site and transplanting it into suitable habitat. Such trials at Port Stephens have shown promising signs.

Human activities are causing species loss at an alarming rate. We must do everything in our power to prevent the extinction of the cauliflower soft coral, and other threatened species, to preserve the balance of nature and its ecosystems.

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Australia’s threatened species plan sends in the ambulances but ignores glaring dangers

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Meryl Larkin, PhD Candidate, Southern Cross University; David Harasti, Adjunct assistant professor, Southern Cross University; Steve Smith, Professor of Marine Science, National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University, and Tom R Davis, Research Scientist – Marine Climate Change

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Torpor: a neat survival trick once thought rare in Australian animals is actually widespread

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Chris Wacker, University of New England

Life is hard for small animals in the wild, but they have many solutions to the challenges of their environment. One of the most fascinating of these strategies is torpor. Not, to be confused with sleep or Sunday afternoon lethargy, torpor is a complex response to the costs of living.

To enter torpor, an animal decreases its metabolism, reducing its energy requirements. A torpid animal will often be curled in a tight ball in its nest and look like it’s sleeping.

Once thought to occur only in birds and mammals in the Northern Hemisphere where winters are more pronounced, we now know torpor is widespread in small Australian mammals, and has also been observed in many small Australian bird species.

Echidnas use torpor to save energy.
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Animal response to a bushfire is astounding. These are the tricks they use to survive

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Masters of metabolism

Birds and mammals are endotherms and can maintain a high and constant body temperature independent of the environmental temperature, thanks to their high metabolic rate. This allows them to be active across a wide range of environments.

The downside? This high metabolic rate requires a lot of food to fuel it. By reducing the metabolism in a very controlled manner and entering torpor, an animal can live on less energy.

With a lower metabolic rate, the animal’s body temperature decreases — sometimes by as much as 30°C. How low it goes can depend on the extent of the metabolic reduction and the temperature of animal’s immediate environment. The reduced body temperature further lowers the metabolic rate.

Slowing down to survive

Torpor is an extremely effective survival strategy for small endotherms. For example, small mammals have been observed using torpor after bushfires.

Take the brown antechinus, for example. When other animals have fled, this 30g marsupial hides in refuges, waits out the fire, then uses torpor to cope with reduced food availability until local vegetation and invertebrate populations recover.

The brown antechinus uses torpor to cope with reduced food availability after bushfire.
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Many pregnant and lactating bats and marsupials, and even the echidna, synchronise torpor with reproduction to cope with the energetic costs of mating, pregnancy or lactation.

There are two main types of torpor: daily torpor and hibernation.

Daily torpor

Animals that use daily torpor can do so for approximately 3-6 hours a day as needed.

Daily torpor is common in, but not exclusive to, endotherms living in arid areas, such as the fat-tailed dunnart. This species is a carnivorous marsupial and has a diet of insects and other invertebrates, which may be in short supply in winter.

When finding enough food is difficult, the fat-tailed dunnart uses torpor.
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Weighing approximately 12 grams as adults, the fat-tailed dunnart may need to eat its body weight in food each day. When finding enough food is difficult, it uses torpor; foraging in the early part of the night then entering torpor in the early morning. Fat-tailed dunnarts reduce their metabolic rate, and subsequently their body temperature, from 35 °C to approximately 15°C, or the temperature of their underground nest.

Hibernation

Animals that hibernate lower their metabolic rate further and have longer torpor bouts than those that use daily torpor. An example of an Australian hibernator is the eastern pygmy possum, a 40g marsupial found in south eastern Australia that hibernates regularly, decreasing its body temperature from approximately 35 °C to as low as 5°C.

When active, this species can survive for less than half a day on 1g of fat, but when hibernating, it can survive for two weeks.

A torpid eastern pygmy possum. Note the curled posture.
Photo credit: Chris Wacker, Author provided

If it weren’t for the periodic increases in metabolic rate and body temperature, a hibernating pygmy possum could live for well over three months on 1g of fat. However, the exact purpose of these periodic arousals is unknown.

The metabolic rate during pygmy possum hibernation is just 2% of the minimum metabolic rate endotherms at a normal body temperature need to live. This baseline metabolism is called basal metabolic rate.

Black bears can’t hibernate with a lower body temperature.
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Compare this with a well-known hibernator, the American black bear.

At approximately 120kg, its metabolic rate during hibernation decreases to 25% of the basal metabolic rate, and the body temperature decreases from approximately 37°C to 30 °C. Black bears can’t hibernate with a lower body temperature, perhaps because it would take them a very long time to reduce it, and then cost them too much energy to rewarm at the end of hibernation.

Can humans do it?

The question people often ask about torpor, is “can humans do it?” Interestingly, some small primates have been observed using torpor. While it is technically possible to induce torpor in humans chemically, torpor is a very complex physiological process, and there are many aspects of it scientists still don’t fully understand.

The grey mouse lemur in Madagascar is among the primates that uses torpor.
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Coping with climate change

Australia’s wildlife have evolved strategies to cope with life in an often-harsh environment affected by multiple year-long droughts, landscape-altering floods, and widespread bushfires.

Climate change is predicted to increase the duration, frequency and severity of these events, and in conjunction with landscape clearing, animals are facing new environmental and resource challenges.

While animals that use flexible, daily torpor may be well-suited to cope during these times, at least in the short term, hibernators that depend on long winters are most at risk.

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Summer bushfires: how are the plant and animal survivors 6 months on? We mapped their recovery

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Chris Wacker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow – School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This super rare squid is a deep-sea mystery. We recently spotted not 1, but 5, in the Great Australian Bight

Osterhage et al., Author provided

Hugh MacIntosh, Museums Victoria and Deborah Osterhage, CSIRO

The mysterious bigfin squid has been spotted in Australia’s waters for the first time. My colleagues and I from the CSIRO and Museums Victoria detail the encounters in our new research, published today in Public Library of Sciences ONE.

There have only been about a dozen bigfin squid sightings worldwide over the past two decades. Ours happened more than two kilometres below the ocean’s surface in the Great Australian Bight, off the coast of South Australia.

For many people, the phrase “deep-sea squid” may conjure up images of the giant squid, Architeuthis dux, or krakens with huge tentacles swimming in inky black water.

But there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other species of deep-sea squid and octopus (both members of the class Cephalopoda) that are just as mysterious.

First encounters with a slippery individual

For years, one of the only ways to sample the deep sea was to trawl the sea floor with nets. This often damaged the soft bodies of deep-sea organisms beyond recognition. These mangled specimens are then difficult to identify and reveal little to nothing about the creatures.

Fortunately, newer technologies such as remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with high-definition cameras are letting scientists see species as they’ve never seen before — offering deeper insight into their shapes, colours and behaviours in the wild.

Magnapinna is a member of the Cephalopoda class, which includes octopuses and cuttlefish.
Osterhage et al., Author provided

The enigmatic bigfin squid, Magnapinna, is one case in point. When scientists first described the species in 1998, all they had to go by were some damaged specimens from Hawaii.

The most distinctive feature of these specimens were the large fins (at the very top of the body), which gave the squid its name. Years later, scientists exploring the deep Gulf of Mexico with ROVs realised they had come across Magnapinna in the wild.

They discovered that in addition to its distinctive fins, its arms had incredibly long filaments on the tips, making the bigfin squid unlike any other encountered.

These delicate filaments, which are mostly broken off in collected specimens, give Magnapinna an estimated total length of up to seven meters!

In 2001, scientists exploring the seafloor off Oahu, Hawaii, captured footage of a bigfin squid estimated to be between four and six metres long.

Mysterious critters and where to find them

But despite deep-sea ROV surveys becoming more common, Magnapinna has remained elusive.

The handful of sightings have been as far apart as the Central Pacific, North and South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Indian Ocean. This suggests a worldwide distribution.

Yet, the big fin squid had never been seen in Australian waters. That is, until recently, when our team took part in a major research project to better understand the biology and geology of the Great Australian Bight, through the Great Australian Bight Deepwater Marine Program.

On the CSIRO’s research vessel Investigator and charter vessel REM Etive, we surveyed as deep as five kilometres below the water’s surface. Using nets, ROVs and other camera equipment, we recorded hundreds of hours of video footage and uncovered thousands of species.

On one dive, as we watched the video feed from cameras far below us, a wispy shape emerged from the gloom. With large undulating fins, a small torpedo-shaped body and long stringy limbs, it was unmistakably Magnapinna. We yelled and brought the ROV to a halt to get a better look.

The meeting lasted about three minutes. During this time we managed to use parallel laser pointers to measure the squid’s length — about 1.8 meters — before it swam away into darkness.

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Octopuses are super-smart … but are they conscious?

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In total, we recorded five encounters with Magnapinna in the Great Australian Bight. Based on the animals’ measurements, we believe we recorded five different individuals: the most Magnapinna ever filmed in one place.

Most previous records have been of single Magnapinna, but our five squid were all found clustered close to each other. This might mean they like the habitat where they were found, but we’ll need more sightings to be sure.

Unexplained behaviours

The footage we captured has offered new information about Magnapinna’s ecology, behaviour and anatomy.

Previously, Magnapinna has been seen many meters off the sea floor in an upright posture, with arms held wide and filaments draping down. We’re not sure what the specific function of this behaviour is. It might be a way to find prey — akin to dangling sticky, sucker-covered fishing lines.

On our voyage, we saw the squid in a horizontal version of this pose, just centimetres off the sea floor, with its arms and filaments streaming behind. Again, we don’t know whether this behaviour is for travelling, avoiding predators or another method of searching for prey.

If you look at this photo carefully, you can a bigfin squid with its arms spread wide, and its filaments as faint lines stretching away to the bottom right.
Osterhage et al.

One near-miss with a camera gave us a very closeup image of Magnapinna which showed filaments that appeared to be coiled like springs. This may be a means for Magnapinna to retract its filaments when needed, perhaps if it wanted to avoid damage, or reel in something it caught.

Until now, only one other cephalopod, the vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis), has been known to coil its filamentous appendages this way.

A close encounter just centimetres off the seabed shows the squid in a horizontal posture, with its arms spread and filaments dragging behind. Curiously, some of the filaments appear to be coiled like springs.
Osterhage et al.

We have learned more about the mysterious bigfin squid. But until we have more sightings, or even an intact specimen, questions will remain.

One thing we do know is ROV surveying has great potential to enhance our understanding of deep-sea animals. With so much of the ocean around Australia yet to be explored, who knows what we’ll see coming out of the gloom next time?

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Curious Kids: have people ever seen a colossal squid?

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Hugh MacIntosh, Research Associate, Marine Invertebrates, Museums Victoria and Deborah Osterhage, Marine Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Fire almost wiped out rare species in the Australian Alps. Feral horses are finishing the job

Feral horses are destroying what little threatened species habitat was spared from bushfire.
Invasive Species Council

Jamie Pittock, Australian National University

On Friday I flew in a helicopter over the fire-ravaged Kosciuszko National Park. I was devastated by what I saw. Cherished wildlife species are at grave risk of extinction: those populations the bushfires haven’t already wiped out are threatened by thousands of feral horses trampling the land.

The New South Wales park occupies the highest mountain range in Australia and is home to plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. Many of these species are threatened, and their survival depends on protecting habitat as best we can.

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Double trouble as feral horse numbers gallop past 25,000 in the Australian Alps

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Kosciuszko National Park provides habitat for two species of corroboree frog (critically endangered), the alpine she-oak skink (endangered), broad-toothed rat (vulnerable) and stocky galaxias (a critically endangered native fish), among other threatened species.

As the climate has warmed, the cool mountain habitat of these species is shrinking; bushfires have decimated a lot of what was left. Feral horses now threaten to destroy the remainder, and an urgent culling program is needed.

Devastation as far as the eye can see on the burnt western face of Kosciuszko National Park.
Jamie Pittock

Not a green leaf in sight

Australia’s plants and ecosystems did not evolve to withstand trampling by hard-hooved animals, or their intensive grazing. Unfortunately, the New South Wales government has allowed the population of feral horses in the park to grow exponentially in recent years to around 20,000.

I flew over the northern part of the park with members of the Invasive Species Council, who were conducting an urgent inspection of the damage. Thousands of hectares were completely incinerated by bushfires: not a green leaf was visible over vast areas. A cataclysm has befallen the western face of the mountains and tablelands around Kiandra and Mount Selwyn.

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Many of our plants and animals have adapted to fires, but now the fires are changing

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Further north and east of Kiandra the fires were less intense and burnt patchily. On Nungar Plain the grassland and peat wetlands were only lightly burnt, and the first green shoots were already visible along the wetlands of the valley floor.

At first, I wondered if the fires may have spared two animals which live in tunnels in the vegetation on the sub-alpine high plains: the alpine she-oak skink and broad-toothed rat (which, despite the name is a cute, hamster-like creature).

The hamster-like broad toothed rat.
Flickr

But not only was their understory habitat burnt, a dozen feral horses were trampling the peat wetlands and eating the first regrowth.

On the unburnt or partially burnt plains a few ridges over, 100 or more horses were mowing down the surviving vegetation.

Precarious wildlife refuges

Next we flew over a small stream that holds the last remaining population of a native fish species, the stocky galaxias. A small waterfall is all that divides the species from the stream below, and the jaws of the exotic trout which live there.

The aftermath of the fires means the last refuge of the stocky galaxias is likely to become even more degraded.

Over the years, feral horses have carved terraces of trails into the land causing erosion and muddying the stream bank. As more horses congregate on unburnt patches of vegetation after the fires, more eroded sediment will settle on the stream bed and fill the spaces between rocks where the fish shelter. Ash runoff entering the stream may clog the gills of the fish, potentially suffocating them.

An Alpine she-oak skink.
Renee Hartley

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Conservation scientists are grieving after the bushfires — but we must not give up

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Many key wetland habitats of the southern and northern corroboree frogs have also been burnt. These striking yellow and black frogs nest in wetland vegetation.

A corroboree frog.
Flickr

We hovered over a key wetland for the northern corroboree frog that had not been burnt, deep in the alpine forest. A group of feral horses stood in it. They had created muddy wallows, trampled vegetation and worn tracks that will drain the wetland if their numbers are not immediately controlled.

Horses out of control

Five years ago a survey reported about 6,000 feral horses roaming in Kosciuszko National Park. By 2019, the numbers had jumped to at least 20,000.

We saw no dead horses from the air. Unlike our native wildlife, most appear to have escaped the fires.

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Flying down the upper Murrumbidgee River’s Long Plain, I saw large numbers of feral horses gathered in yet more wetlands. Displaced by the fires to the south and west, they were already trampling the mossy and heathy wetlands that store and filter water in the headwaters.

The Murrumbidgee River is a key water source for south-east Australia. The horses stir up sediment and defecate in the water. They create channels which drain and dry the wetlands, exposing them to fire.

One-third of Kosciuszko National Park has been burnt out and at the time of writing the fires remain active. Feral horses are badly compounding the damage.

If we don’t immediately reduce feral horse numbers, the consequences for Kosciuszko National Park and its unique Australian flora and fauna will be horrendous.

Responsible managers limit the numbers of livestock on their lands and control feral animals. The NSW government must repeal its 2018 legislation protecting feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, and undertake a responsible control program similar to those of the Australian Capital Territory and Victorian governments.

Without an emergency cull of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, burnt vegetation may not fully recover and threatened species will march further towards extinction.

Jamie Pittock, Professor, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Review of historic stock routes may put rare stretches of native plants and animals at risk

The travelling stock routes are a precious national resource.
Author provided

Luke S. O’Loughlin, Australian National University; Damian Michael, Australian National University; David Lindenmayer, Australian National University, and Thea O’Loughlin, Charles Sturt University

Since the 19th century, Australian drovers have moved their livestock along networks of stock routes. Often following traditional Indigenous pathways, these corridors and stepping-stones of remnant vegetation cross the heavily cleared wheat and sheep belt in central New South Wales.

The publicly owned Travelling Stock Reserve network of New South Wales is now under government review, which could see the ownership of much of this crown land move into private hands.

But in a study published today in the Australian Journal of Botany we suggest that privatising stock routes may endanger vital woodlands and put vulnerable species at risk.

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The review will establish how individual reserves are currently being used. Although originally established for graziers, the patches of bush in the network are now more likely to be used for recreation, cultural tourism, biodiversity conservation, apiary and drought-relief grazing.

This shift away from simply moving livestock has put pressure on the government to seek “value” in the network. The review will consider proposals from individuals and organisations to buy or acquire long-term leases for particular reserves.

It is likely that most proposals to purchase travelling stock reserves would come from existing agricultural operations.

A precious national resource

Travelling stock reserves across New South Wales represent some of the most intact examples of now-endangered temperate grassy woodland ecosystems.

Our research found that changing the status or use of these reserves could seriously impact these endangered woodlands. They criss-cross highly developed agricultural landscapes, which contain very limited amounts of remnant vegetation (areas where the bush is relatively untouched). Travelling stock reserves are therefore crucially important patches of habitat and resources for native plants and animals.

This isn’t the first time a change in ownership of travelling stock reserves has been flagged. Over the last century, as modern transport meant the reserves were used less and less for traditional droving, pressure to release these areas for conventional agriculture has increased.

Historic stock routes are still used for grazing cattle.
Daniel Florance, Author provided

To understand what a change in land tenure might mean to the conservation values of these woodlands, we spent five years monitoring vegetation in stock reserves in comparison to remnant woodlands on private farmland.

We found that travelling stock reserves contained a higher number of native plant species, more native shrubs, and less exotic plants than woodland remnants on private land.

The higher vegetation quality in travelling stock reserves was maintained over the five years, which included both the peak of Australia’s record-breaking Millennium Drought and the heavy rainfall that followed, referred to as the “Big Wet”.

The take-home message was that remnant woodland on public land was typically in better nick than in private hands.

Importantly, other studies have found that this high-quality vegetation is critical for many threatened and vulnerable native animals. For example, eastern yellow robins and black-chinned honeyeaters occur more frequently in places with more shrubs growing below the canopy.

The vulnerable superb parrot also uses travelling stock reserves for habitat.
Damian Michael, Author provided

The contrast we saw between woodlands in travelling stock reserves and private land reflects the different ways they’re typically managed. Travelling stock reserves have a history of periodic low-intensity grazing, mostly by cattle, with long rest periods. Woodland on active farms tend to be more intensively grazed, by sheep and cattle, often without any strategic rest periods.

The stock reserves’ future

The uncertain future of travelling stock reserves casts doubt on the state of biodiversity across New South Wales.

The current review of travelling stock reserves is considering each reserve in isolation. It flies in the face of the belief of many managers, practitioners and researchers that the true value of these reserves is in the integrity of the entire network – that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Travelling stock reserves protect threatened species, allow the movement of wildlife, are seed sources for habitat restoration efforts, and support the ecosystem of adjacent agricultural land. These benefits depend on the quality of the remnant vegetation, which is determined by the grazing regime imposed by who owns and manages the land.

Of course, not all travelling stock reserves are in good condition. Some are subject to high-intensity livestock grazing (for example, under longer-term grazing leases) coupled with a lack of funding to manage and enhance natural values.

Changing the land tenure status of travelling stock reserves risks increasing grazing pressure, which our study suggests would reduce ecosystem quality and decrease their conservation value.

The travelling stock routes are important parts of our ecosystem, our national heritage, and our landscape. They can best be preserved by remaining as public land, so the entire network can be managed sustainably.

This requires adequate funding for the Local Land Services, so they can appropriately manage pest animals, weeds, erosion and illegal firewood harvesting and rubbish dumping.

Travelling stock reserves are more than just The Long Paddock – they are important public land, whose ecological value has been maintained under public control. They should continue to be managed for the public good.

Luke S. O’Loughlin, Research fellow, Australian National University; Damian Michael, Ecologist, Australian National University; David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, and Thea O’Loughlin, Ecologist, Adjunct Researcher, Charles Sturt University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The good news and bad news about the rare birds of Papua New Guinea

Robert Davis, Edith Cowan University

The rainforests of Papua New Guinea are home to one of the richest bird populations in the world. But many are threatened by logging and palm oil farming.

Now, a team of researchers led by Edith Cowan University have surveyed the PNG island of New Britain to see how the bird population is faring.

The good news: several bird species, like the Blue-eyed Cockatoo, were found to be doing better than before.

The bad news: the researchers saw only a few New Britain Kingfishers, and some vulnerable species, like the New Britain Bronzewing, Golden Masked-owl and Bismarck Thicketbird, were not seen at all.

Their results, recently published in the journal Bird Conservation International, help to inform the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Robert Davis, Senior Lecturer in Vertebrate Biology, Edith Cowan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Publish and don’t perish – how to keep rare species’ data away from poachers

Birdwatchers are keeping the location of the newly rediscovered night parrot a closely guarded secret.
Adventure Australia, Author provided

Andrew Lowe, University of Adelaide; Anita Smyth, University of Adelaide; Ben Sparrow, University of Adelaide, and Glenda Wardle, University of Sydney

Highly collectable species, especially those that are rare and threatened, can potentially be put at risk from poaching if information describing where they can be found is published. But rather than withholding this information, as has been recently recommended, scientists should publish such information through secure data repositories so that this knowledge can continue to be used to help conserve and manage the world’s most threatened species.

Scientists are encouraged to publish data so their discoveries can be shared and scrutinised. However, a recent article has identified the risks of publishing the locations of rare, endangered or newly described species.

The example of the Chinese cave gecko shows that these concerns may be warranted. The species went extinct at the location where it was discovered, potentially at the hands of scientifically literate poachers.

But instead of withholding such information, we suggest (in a letter published today in Science) that scientists can publish sensitive data securely, while minimising the risk of misuse, by using one of a range of currently available tools.

A little knowledge

Typically, the problem for threatened species is not that too much information is available on their population and location, but rather quite the opposite. For example, in New South Wales more than 150 species have missed out on conservation funding because of a lack of such information.

On the flip side, there is little evidence that encouraging researchers to withhold this information will thwart people who are determined to find specific species. Collectors who specialise in highly collectable species can get location information from a variety of sources such as wildlife trade websites, pet and naturalist clubs, social media, and the popular press. This is despite the range of laws, regulations (such as scientific and collecting permits) and community reporting aimed at restricting the collection and trade of endangered species.

Grove of Wollemi pine, the location of which has been kept secret for more than 25 years.
Jaimie Plaza

How to publish sensitive data

Many governments have implemented sensitive data policies to protect ecological and species data, based on their own lists of sensitive species. Many of these policies have been in place for almost a decade and have kept secure the locations of hundreds of highly collectable species such as Australia’s Wollemi pine.

These policies are practised by numerous data portals worldwide, including DataONE, South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute, Australia’s Virtual Herbarium, Australia’s Department of Environment, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, and the Atlas for Living Australia.

A wealth of advice is also available to researchers and data managers on how to manage sensitive species information, such as the guidance provided by Science International and the Australian National Data Service. Science journals also work closely with open data repositories to ensure that sensitive species information is securely published – see, for example, the policies of leading journals Science and Nature.

Information entropy – why it’s a good idea to publish data before they are lost in the mists of time.
Michener (2006) Ecol. Informatics

One example of good data management is the AEKOS data portal run by Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). AEKOS contains data from different government monitoring surveys covering almost 100,000 sites across the country. Its default position is to make ecological data and information freely available for land-management or wildlife research.

However, sensitive data are flagged during the early stages of the publishing process. The data are then secured in one of three ways:

• masking sensitive information by giving only approximate locations or non-specific species names

• making data available only after approval by the legal owners

• embargoing the data for a maximum of two years.

To ensure data trustworthiness, TERN’s data reviewers further check for any data sensitivities that may have been overlooked during submission.

What’s the alternative?

We recognise the importance of keeping the locations of highly collectable species secure, and the need for caution in publishing precise site locations. But despite recent concerns, the examples given above show how online scientific data publishing practices have sufficiently matured to minimise misuses such as illegal or excessive collection, disturbance risk, and landholder privacy issues.

The alternative is not to deposit these valuable data at all. But this risks the loss of vital knowledge in the quest to protect wildlife.

In tackling poaching, we should perhaps seek to motivate poachers to help protect our most endangered wildlife. Such tactics are thought by some to have contributed to the discovery of several endangered bird species populations, and potentially the recent rediscovery of the night parrot, after a century of elusiveness in Australia. If poachers are willing to turn gamekeeper, getting them to share their rare species knowledge securely would certainly improve conservation outcomes.

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The authors acknowledge their co-signatories of the letter published in Science: Ken Atkins (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Ron Avery (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage), Lee Belbin (Atlas of Living Australia), Noleen Brown (Qld Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation), Amber E. Budden (DataONE, University of New Mexico), Paul Gioia (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Siddeswara Guru (TERN, University of Queensland), Mel Hardie (Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning), Tim Hirsch (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), Donald Hobern (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), John La Salle (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Scott R. Loarie (California Academy of Sciences), Matt Miles (SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources), Damian Milne (NT Department of Environment and Natural Resources), Miles Nicholls (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Maurizio Rossetto (National Herbarium of NSW), Jennifer Smits (ACT Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate), Gregston Terrill (ACT Department of Environment and Energy), and David Turner (University of Adelaide).

Andrew Lowe, Director of Food Innovation, University of Adelaide; Anita Smyth, Data manager, TERN, University of Adelaide; Ben Sparrow, Associate professor and Director – TERN AusPlots and Eco-informatics, University of Adelaide, and Glenda Wardle, Professor in Ecology and Evolution, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Scientists are accidentally helping poachers drive rare species to extinction

The beautiful Chinese cave gecko, or Goniurosaurus luii, is highly prized by poachers.
Carola Jucknies

Benjamin Scheele, Australian National University and David Lindenmayer, Australian National University

If you open Google and start typing “Chinese cave gecko”, the text will auto-populate to “Chinese cave gecko for sale” – just US$150, with delivery. This extremely rare species is just one of an increasingly large number of animals being pushed to extinction in the wild by animal trafficking.

What’s shocking is that the illegal trade in Chinese cave geckoes began so soon after they were first scientifically described in the early 2000s.

It’s not an isolated case; poachers are trawling scientific papers for information on the location and habits of new, rare species.

As we argue in an essay published today in Science, scientists may have to rethink how much information we publicly publish. Ironically, the principles of open access and transparency have led to the creation of detailed online databases that pose a very real threat to endangered species.

We have personally experienced this, in our research on the endangered pink-tailed worm-lizard, a startling creature that resembles a snake. Biologists working in New South Wales are required to provide location data on all species they discover during scientific surveys to an online wildlife atlas.

But after we published our data, the landowners with whom we worked began to find trespassers on their properties. The interlopers had scoured online wildlife atlases. As well as putting animals at risk, this undermines vital long-term relationships between researchers and landowners.

The endangered pink-tailed worm-lizard (Aprasia parapulchella).
Author provided

The illegal trade in wildlife has exploded online. Several recently described species have been devastated by poaching almost immediately after appearing in the scientific literature. Particularly at risk are animals with small geographic ranges and specialised habitats, which can be most easily pinpointed.

Poaching isn’t the only problem that is exacerbated by unrestricted access to information on rare and endangered species. Overzealous wildlife enthusiasts are increasingly scanning scientific papers, government and NGO reports, and wildlife atlases to track down unusual species to photograph or handle.

This can seriously disturb the animals, destroy specialised microhabitats, and spread disease. A striking example is the recent outbreak in Europe of a amphibian chytrid fungus, which essentially “eats” the skin of salamanders.

This pathogen was introduced from Asia through wildlife trade, and has already driven some fire salamander populations to extinction.

Fire salamanders have been devastated by diseases introduced through the wildlife trade.
Erwin Gruber

Rethinking unrestricted access

In an era when poachers can arm themselves with the latest scientific data, we must urgently rethink whether it is appropriate to put detailed location and habitat information into the public domain.

We argue that before publishing, scientists must ask themselves: will this information aid or harm conservation efforts? Is this species particularly vulnerable to disruption? Is it slow-growing and long-lived? Is it likely to be poached?

Fortunately, this calculus will only be relevant in a few cases. Researchers might feel an intellectual passion for the least lovable subjects, but when it comes to poaching, it is generally only charismatic and attractive animals that have broad commercial appeal.

But in high-risk cases, where economically valuable species lack adequate protection, scientists need to consider censoring themselves to avoid unintentionally contributing to species declines.

Restricting information on rare and endangered species has trade-offs, and might inhibit some conservation efforts. Yet, much useful information can still be openly published without including specific details that could help the nefarious (or misguided) to find a vulnerable species.

There are signs people are beginning to recognise this problem and adapt to it. For example, new species descriptions are now being published without location data or habitat descriptions.

Biologists can take a lesson from other fields such as palaeontology, where important fossil sites are often kept secret to avoid illegal collection. Similar practices are also common in archaeology.

Restricting the open publication of scientifically and socially important information brings its own challenges, and we don’t have all the answers. For example, the dilemma of organising secure databases to collate data on a global scale remains unresolved.

For the most part, the move towards making research freely available is positive; encouraging collaboration and driving new discoveries. But legal or academic requirements to publish location data may be dangerously out of step with real-life risks.

Biologists have a centuries-old tradition of publishing information on rare and endangered species. For much of this history it was an innocuous practice, but as the world changes, scientists must rethink old norms.

Benjamin Scheele, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Ecology, Australian National University and David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Footage of Rare Whale

Australia’s rarest insect goes global: Lord Howe Island stick insect breeding colonies now in US, UK and Canada

Susan Lawler, La Trobe University

If you haven’t heard of the Lord Howe Island stick insect, you have missed out on one of the most remarkable conservation stories of the decade.

This week’s news is that breeding colonies of Australia’s rarest insect will soon be established in zoos at San Diego, Toronto and Bristol. These new colonies will join those at the Melbourne Zoo and the Lord Howe Island Museum to ensure the future of this unique species.

The remarkable story of these stick insects (which are also called phasmids or land lobsters) started when rats escaped from a shipwreck in 1918 and proceeded to eat every last stick insect on Lord Howe Island. The species was thought to be extinct until a few live specimens were discovered on Balls Pyramid in 2001. The news headline in the Sydney Morning Herald at the time proclaimed: “Joy as ancient ‘walking sausage’ found alive.”

This remote and almost inaccessible population was the key to survival for the phasmids, but presented enormous difficulties for scientists who wanted to study them. Eventually an expedition was arranged to collect live specimens, which had to be done at night when the insects are out of their burrows and active.

The story of the captive breeding program is almost heart-stopping with many twists and turns. The original pair held at the Melbourne zoo were named Adam and Eve and because almost nothing was known of their lifestyle and habits, trial and error and careful observation were needed to provide them with appropriate care. At one point Eve nearly died but was revived when zookeeper Patrick Rohan carefully dropped a mixture of sugar, calcium and ground melaleuca leaves into her mouth.

Eve’s first egg hatched on Threatened Species Day on 2003, and although this wasn’t the end of the challenges facing Melbourne Zoo staff, it turned out to be the beginning of hope for the species’ successful captive breeding program.

I became personally acquainted with these insects when the zoo allowed selected schools to hatch some eggs and one of the babies spent time at my house. A film of her first steps and the story of our excitement was published here in 2012.

Sticks that spoon: juvenile Lord Howe Stick Insects hatched at Tallangatta Secondary School in 2012.
Geoff Edney

The Lord Howe stick insects start out small and green but grow up fat and black. They spend their days curled up together in burrows and head out at night to feed. Their story has caught the attention of David Attenborough and Jane Goodall.

New books about Lord Howe Stick Insects

If you want to know all about the story of the Lord Howe Stick Insects, two recent books are ready for you to devour.

For adults, Return of the Phasmid: Australia’s rarest insect fights back from the brink of extinction, by Rick Wilkinson provides a comprehensive and fascinating summary of the history, geology and human drama involved in this story, complete with great photos and personal accounts. Anyone who wants to understand what it takes to bring a species back from the brink will find it great reading.

Additionally and delightfully, the invertebrate zookeeper Rohan Cleave has released a children’s book, Phasmid: Saving the Lord Howe Stick Insect, with lovely watercolour illustrations that bring phasmids to life for young hearts.

Soon these books will become important in a global context, as people in San Diego, Toronto and Bristol get to meet our very own ‘walking sausages’.

Susan Lawler, Senior Lecturer, Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.