Project Leader and Host
Organisation
Associate Professor Steve Williams
Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change, James Cook
University
Project Description and Objectives
For detailed descriptions of the outputs for
this project for Year 4 (2009/2010) of the MTSRF Research
Programme, see the Annual Research
Plan.
In conjunction with Project 2.5ii.3, this
project will utilise a series of well-established sites on
altitudinal and regional transects and existing forest plots to
examine responses at the ecosystem and species level to climate
change. Both projects will take advantage of existing data from
10-25 years of collections at these sites (plots) by the CSIRO,
James Cook University and through the Rainforest
CRC.
The aim of Project 2.5ii.4 is to assess the
potential of Wet Tropics species to adapt to climatic change
through ecological and evolutionary mechanisms, and establish the
potential for refuges to mitigate impacts on vulnerable species.
Using an extensive existing database and combined expertise,
results will allow us to better predict the consequences of climate
change on tropical biodiversity. This project will assist in
modifying species-specific management / conservation plans for
biodiversity in the Wet Tropics and developing options to mitigate
threats to species at high risk of extinction, and to avoid costly
management actions on species that have the necessary natural
adaptive capacity.
It will also provide information to modify
management practices by assessing the current ecological status and
trends in biodiversity in North Queensland; the condition and
trends of threatened species and communities and ultimately develop
options to mitigate the threat of climate change to the Wet Tropics
as a whole. In particular, the conservation of existing or addition
of artificial thermally buffered habitats.
This project has many links with other MTSRF
programs and projects that will be mapped explicitly in the next
year. While the tourism industry and Aboriginal groups' needs were
not specifically identified in the original development of this
project within MTSRF, the project will now engage these
stakeholders as much as possible through operational committees and
through discussion with the Tropical Tourism Alliance and
Aboriginal Rainforest Council.
Key objectives of Project 2.5ii.4 are to:
Extinction vulnerability
Resilience, ecological responses,
plasticity, refugia (topographic, micro-habitat)
-
Quantify patterns of distribution and abundance of
selected faunal groups, and existing levels of niche breadth and
ecological plasticity with respect to climatic variables, habitat
type, topography, life history traits and ecology;
-
Identify geographic areas that potentially provide
thermally-buffered habitats and measure the actual degree of
microclimatic buffering across the main environmental gradients
within identified refugia, replicated both temporally and
spatially;
-
Produce regional GIS coverages of microclimate
based on regional climatic layers calibrated by empirical
microclimate data, and to use these higher-resolution, targeted
data to improve predictive spatial models of species distributions
and impact predictions;
-
Obtain empirical measurements of net primary
productivity across altitudinal/latitudinal gradients within the
Wet Tropics region to test hypotheses that increasing primary
productivity may alleviate impacts on biodiversity;
-
Provide management and policy recommendations on
adaptation to climate change impacts and provide the knowledge to
maximise the efficient utilisation of management resources across
species and geographic areas;
Physiological tolerances of threatened
species (arboreal mammals, microhylid frogs)