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)

Physiological tolerances of threatened species (arboreal mammals, microhylid frogs)

• Determine the physiological range and tolerances, and potential for adaptation, of those species predicted to be most at risk under climatic changes.

See also:  Williams, S. E. (2006) Vertebrates of the Wet Tropics Rainforests of Australia:  Species Distributions and Biodiversity.  Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management.  Rainforest CRC, Cairns (282pp.).

An atlas of vertebrates of the Wet Tropics biogeographic region, this report summarises Williams' work to understand the ecology of the rainforests in the Wet Tropics, in particular, the patterns and processes of rainforest biodiversity and, more recently, how global climate change is likely to affect these rainforests. 

The maps presented in this report are Williams' best estimate of the current distributions of 177 vertebrate species given available data.  Maps represent a combination of bioclimatic modelling, habitat preferences, biogeographic distributions and expert knowledge.