Temperature, rainfall and other climate variables influence the occurrence, range boundaries and behaviour of species, including the timing of natural events, such as migration and breeding. The impacts of climate change have been observed on ecosystems in every ocean and on every continent including Australia. However, the vast majority of past research has been conducted in northern hemisphere temperate ecosystems. Given the substantial climatic and ecosystem differences between these regions and Australia, caution must be applied when translating northern hemisphere results to Australian species. For example, ecological drivers such as fire and precipitation play an important role in shaping distinct southern terrestrial ecosystems. This paper summarizes observed impacts of climate change on Australian species, both terrestrial and marine, identifies key knowledge gaps, and provides suggestions on how these may be addressed.

At the time of European settlement, the terrestrial reptile fauna of the Sydney metropolitan area, west and north to the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, consisted of 45 species, based on Australian Museum records, although most regions had between 30-36 species. Skinks and elapid snakes dominated the fauna, with progressively fewer agamid and gekkonid lizards, pygopod and varanid lizards, colubrid snakes, pythons and typhlopid snakes. Most of these species have declined and some have disappeared over the past 140 years, both in suburban environments and adjacent small bushland fragments. Some species disappear rapidly from bushland areas with only minor disturbance, and listings based on records over the past 50 years often underestimate historical faunal diversity. Only large bushland reserves appear to retain the majority of species. Only a small number of skink species are typically retained in suburban environments, although a small number of other lizards and snakes may persist if suitable habitats are retained, and some large snake species may utilise suburban environments adjacent to undeveloped or agricultural areas. Ecological features possessed by the surviving suburban reptile fauna include either a lack of habitat specialisation or a habitat preference for moist environments, high fecundity, a lack of dietary specialisation, and small size. In contrast, a habitat specialisation for sandstone environments (other than caves), stenophagy, low fecundity and large size combined with large home ranges are features commonly possessed by species that have not persisted in suburban environments.

Cattle have been grazed in the forested areas of northern NSW for over 150 years. While this practice is considered to have significant benefits for forest management and the local economy, the combined effects of grazing and fire has raised concerns about the impact of this composite management practice on the flora and fauna. The effects on a biodiverse and functionally important component, the terrestrial invertebrates, are largely unknown. This study looked at ground-active invertebrates and found that grazing impacts operate within a configuration of broader environmental and historical factors. At a landscape scale, abundance and taxon richness were influenced by geology (and related aspects of topography and soil), although response patterns varied between groups. There was a marked spatial patterning in richness, probably as a response to a rainfall-related productivity gradient. Past logging practices have created patches of more open environments within the overall forest matrix and it appears that cattle graze preferentially in these areas. At this smaller scale, abundance and richness were related to aspects of forest structure and soil physical properties. Grazing and associated burning appear to have decreased the amount and spatial variability of understorey vegetation and soil organic matter, with these changes influencing community composition (at the ordinal level). Grazing related impacts on invertebrate assemblages were however subtle, which is expected given the low overall range of grazing intensities studied in this project. The applicability of coarse-level data to describe and interpret patterns and disturbance effects is discussed. Future management needs to consider the role of grazing in the context of changed land tenure in these forests, particularly with regard to altered fire regimes and their effect on biodiversity conservation.

There has been much discussion about the difference between marine and terrestrial systems and appropriateness of applying terrestrial conservation methods to marine systems. To investigate these issues, 43 criteria were assessed for magnitude of difference and implications for conservation planning. Results suggest that despite distinct differences in the ecology of marine and terrestrial systems, many of the conservation concepts applied in terrestrial systems are relevant and readily transferable to marine systems. Concern that marine systems may be too open and variable to support area-based conservation approaches is quickly abating. This initial misconception was influenced not only by real differences in ecology and scale of the two systems, but also by historic biases in our knowledge and use of these systems. In broad terms, as our understanding of these systems continues to develop, it is increasingly clear that both are subject to a similar suite of conservation issues requiring similar types of responses. In many regards the underlying conservation planning approaches currently applied in these systems are tending to converge towards a ‘landscape’ management approach incorporating on and off-reserve conservation techniques. Increasingly for marine and terrestrial systems, the most important conservation planning objectives include the establishment of secure systems of appropriately located, designed and managed protected areas, and to integrate their application with sustainable management and supplementary conservation management in the off-reserve matrix.

This paper provides an operational framework developed to assist biodiversity researcher s in the design and implementation of focused invertebrate biodiversity assessments appropriate to particular questions or hypotheses. It draws together established protocols, issues of quality control, recent developments and proposes a set of critical questions for each of eight sequential framework components. Use of the framework will help ensure that invertebrate data and the recommendations that result from the analysis of those data are useful for conservation planning and resource management. The paper is intended to help biodiversity researchers generate valid and robust data. It will also be a valuable resource for managers, policy advisers and politicians who must assess the quality and therefore the usefulness of these invertebrate biodiversity data and the management recommendations that follow. Our primary motivation is that invertebrate biodiversity researchers place themselves in a stronger position in which to advise on policy and management decisions that affect invertebrate conservation.

The conservation of biological diversity is a foundation of ecologically sustainable management. To assess sustainability with regard to biodiversity conservation, forest managers are using forest type as a surrogate for ecosystem and species diversity. This paper investigates the applicability of this approach for invertebrate conservation in managed forests. As invertebrates comprise the bulk of the biodiversity in these systems it is important that they are effectively incorporated into any proposed reporting scheme. This research shows that specific forest types and their growth stages do not support characteristic arthropod assemblages and that composition of terrestrial arthropod communities is related to the structure and disturbance history of the ground layer.

The native herpetofauna of Tasmania, though a small part of the rich Australian fauna, is ecologically and biogeographically distinctive. It contains 31 terrestrial species and six marine species. Among the terrestrial fauna nine species (29 per cent of the fauna) are endemic. Only one species, Nioveoscincus palfreymani, is considered to be threatened. Habitat for most species is well reserve d but human impacts on unreserved land have reduced the amount of available habitat for some specie s (e.g., Utoria raniformis) and these need monitoring. Distributional and abundance data are incomplete for almost all species, although amphibian and reptile atlases, currently under preparation by the Parks and Wildlife Service, should improve this situation considerably. The highest priority for action to conserve the fauna is for the State Government to pass legislation to protect native species. Actions to conserve the fauna as well as recent attempts to exploit it are summarized.

Birds are useful for testing ecological theory, monitoring environmental change, and establishing the basis of a national conservation programme. However, there are difficulties in estimating the numbers of terrestrial birds. Observer error and differences in spatial and temporal detectability are problems common to the census of birds throughout the world. Asynchronous reproduction and a high level of communal or co-operative nesting are special problems encountered in censuses of Australia’s terrestrial avifauna. Despite these unique features and the relatively recent use of bird censusing procedures in Australia, it appears that the census methods developed in the Northern Hemisphere are equally valid in Australia, suffering only from the same sources of error encountered in their use in America and Europe. This paper reviews the history of terrestrial bird censuses in Australia, describes the special problems encountered by Australian workers, and shows how counts of the terrestrial avifauna have been used to test ecological theory and develop conservation and management programmes for the continent’s biota. It concludes with some simple guidelines which, if followed, will facilitate the use and comparison of census results between projects and localities.

In many aquatic systems, cascading trophic interactions are important determinants of community structure, via top-down (predation) and bottom-up (productivity) factors. In contrast, little is known of the importance of these factors in the structuring of diverse terrestrial communities. This two-year study monitored the responses of a semi-arid terrestrial arthropod community to predator (wolf spiders and ants) and nutrient manipulations. Preliminary results from the first year of the experiment indicate variation in abiotic factors, and intraguild and non-consumptive interactions may play important roles in suppressing the effects of top-down and bottom-up forces in this system.