We have just returned from a month collecting insects in the National Heritage-listed Kimberley region of Western Australia. Together with the Wunambal Gaambera and Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporations…
Western Australia’s State Barrier Fence is designed to keep emus out of farms - but at what cost?
Graeme Chapman.
Every five or ten years Western Australia’s emus undertake mass migrations in search of food. On the way they encounter the 1,170km State Barrier Fence, which seeks to stop dingos, emus and kangaroos entering…
Biodiversity matters, even in your mouth.
Mandy Jouan
The more we look, the more we realise just how important intact ecosystems are for our own well-being - and it really doesn’t matter at which scale we are looking. When Alan Cooper, Director of the Australian…
Tropical mountains have more biodiversity than temperate mountains, and temperature is the key according to research led…
The new study suggests extinction driven by climate instability may be just as important as evolution as a driver of plant biodiversity.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecologyweb
Sunanda Creagh, La Conversation Canada et Jan Wisniewski, La Conversation Canada
Ice Ages caused a mass extinction of plants in south-eastern Australia around a million years ago, according to a new study that presents a fresh take on how extinction shapes biodiversity. Scientists…
We’re happy to kill individual creatures in large numbers - what’s stopping us wiping out the biosphere?
Darren Harmon
The environmental crisis has never loomed so large nor been so extensively debated as in the last few years. But at the same time we have never heard less about environmental ethics - the bio-inclusive…
Four major hydroelectric projects are planned for the upper Yangtze River valley.
Steb Fisher
The 2012 China Ecological Footprint Report has highlighted the cost to biodiversity of China’s rapid economic development. Biodiversity in China is under pressure because of loss of habitat. In our study…
There are roughly 5 million species on earth. Most are insects.
Roger Smith
There has been enormous uncertainty amongst the scientific community on just how many species there are on Earth and how rapidly we are losing them through extinction. Given that taxonomists have described…
Australia has some of the world’s most unusual biological specimens. We have plants that look like animals, animals that look like plants, a fish that looks like a frog, a mole that does not dig tunnels…
An early dry season fire in Kakadu National Park – are these fires burning up our mammals?
Clay Trauernicht
Conservationists should take heart that Australia is finally waking up to the biodiversity crisis in Australia’s north. It is an urgent problem: right now, a diverse assortment of our small mammals – bandicoots…
A high level of coral cover doesn’t always mean a high level of species diversity; and diversity is important.
Maria Beger
The health and productivity of coral reefs is rapidly declining. Hard corals are the principal builders of coral reef ecosystems; however they are struggling to survive due to pollution, catchment clearing…
Tim Flannery’s recent Quarterly Essay, After the Future, questions whether Australian national parks will become “marsupial ghost towns” despite the tens of millions of dollars governments spend on them…
Without help, parks like Kakadu could become marsupial ghost towns.
Territory Expeditions
Today we begin a series on Australia’s endangered species and how best to conserve them. The series will run each Thursday, and begins with this excerpt from Tim Flannery’s Quarterly Essay, After the Future…
Invertebrates can seem alien and “other”, but the world can’t get by without them.
Thomas Shahan
Invertebrates are all around us – crawling, squirming and buzzing about their business. From forests canopies to ocean depths, they form about 80% of the known species on Earth. By virtue of their sheer…
There are sound ecological reasons for introducing grazing animals to some wild areas, but this shouldn’t act as a cover for non-scientific grazing.
Richard Lehnert
Grazing by livestock (mainly sheep and cattle) has irreversibly degraded many natural ecosystems in Australia. Consequently, stock are usually removed from public land when new conservation reserves are…
Ants might be a pain … but they play a vital role in maintaining the variety of plant life we see around us.
mraandrews
You’d be hard pressed to find many people who hold ants in high regard. That might be due to their destructive behaviour towards lawns, their ability to infest your house in no time at all, or a willingness…
In some parts of Queensland, half the plant species may be displaced.
Laura Thorn
Climate change will place increasing pressure on Australia’s natural environments in the future. Queensland is no exception. CSIRO and the Queensland Government recently conducted an in-depth review and…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University