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| | Welcome
DELWP recently appointed a new Scientific Reference Panel to advise the department in the implementation of the DELWP Science Statement. The panel comprises seven scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, Australian National University, RMIT University, University of Melbourne and the Conservation Ecology Centre. We welcome this additional scientific input and look forward to the valuable experience of working with the panel over the coming years. We have caught up with several of the members already (picture at left shows Professor Abbas Rajabifard (right) with ARI’s Graeme Newell) and are keen to share and discuss how our research supports and guides ecosystem policy and management.
Last issue we reported that the ARI project Fire Analysis Module for Ecological values (FAME) was a finalist for a global award; we are thrilled to confirm that this project has won the INFORMS Decision Analysis Practice Award, which was presented in Seattle.
Our projects featured in this issue include how rainforest is recovering from fire and what that means for its future, the level of Victorians’ connection to nature and a revolutionary method that can identify freshwater animals from DNA in water samples. We hope you find these interesting.
We look forward to bringing you more ARI news in 2020 – it will be a particularly special year for us: 50 years since being opened by the Queen in 1970!
Regards
Dr Kim Lowe
Research Director
Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research
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| | How are Cool Temperate Rainforests coping with fire?
The absence of fire is an important factor that determines rainforest distribution over a broad scale. But what happens as our climate warms and fire frequency and intensity increases? ARI surveyed areas in the Yarra Ranges National Park that had been burnt in 2009 to determine how this vegetation has fared after ten years.
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| | Do Victorians value nature? - we asked them!
A survey of >3000 Victorians has revealed how very connected to nature people feel, and the positive things they do to look after it (e.g. responsible pet ownership and planting native species in gardens). The survey also identified barriers that people face connecting and acting for nature.
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| | eDNA - innovative tecnnology to find fish
ARI now has equipment that detects the genetic material (DNA) of species present in waterways. Environmental DNA (eDNA) monitoring has the potential to revolutionise surveys since it can rapidly detect fish, crayfish and mussels, and estimate their relative abundance. This is particularly useful for rare, cryptic species in remote areas.
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| | ARI quarterly research updates
The aquatic editions feature updates on grazing and wetlands, water for the environment projects, river restoration outcomes for threatened fish, managing a regulated river to support irrigation and fish spawning, and details of staff presentations.
Terrestrial news includes new ARC linkage grants, public service medals, harnessing citizen scientists to assess revegetation, and a collaboration with conservation managers to optimize habitat for a threatened frog.
Interested in receiving these directly? All are welcome to sign up!
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| | Recent fact sheets (link to PDF) and media releases
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| | Recent journal articles (link to abstract) include:
Cox, T.E., Ramsey, D.S.L., Sawyers, E., Campbell, S., Matthews, J. and Elsworth, P. (2019) The impact of RHDV-K5 on rabbit populations in Australia: an evaluation of citizen science surveys to monitor rabbit abundance. Scientific Reports 9: 15229
Parks, S.A., Holsinger L.M., Koontz M.J., Collins, L., Whitman, E., Parisien, M-A., Loehman, R.A., Barnes, J.L. …et al. (2019) Giving ecological meaning to satellite-derived fire severity metrics across North American forests. Remote Sensing 11(14): 1735
Primack, R.B., Regan, T.J., Devictor, V., Zipf, L., Godet, L., Loyola, R., Maas, B., Pakeman, R.J., Cumming, G.S., Bates, A.E., Pejchar, L. and Koh, L.P. (2019) Are scientific editors reliable gatekeepers of the publication process? Biological Conservation 238: 108232
Stoessel, D.J., Fairbrother, P.S., Fanson, B.G., Raymond, S.M.C., Raadik, T.A., Nicol, M.D. and Johnson, L.A. (2019) Salinity tolerance during early development of threatened Murray hardyhead (Craterocephalus fluviatilis) to guide environmental watering. Aquatic Conservation: Marine Freshwater Ecosystems (online early)
Stuart, I., Fanson, B., Lyon, J., Stocks, J., Brooks, S., Norris, A., Thwaites, L., Beitzel, M., Hutchison, M., Ye, Q., Koehn, J. and Bennett, A. (2019) A national estimate of carp biomass for Australia. Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research Unpublished Client Report for the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Heidelberg, Victoria
Tikhonov, G., Duan, L., Abrego, N., Newell, G., White, M., Dunson, D. and Ovaskainen, O. (2019) Computationally efficient joint species distribution modeling of big spatial data. Ecology (accepted)
van Harten, E., Reardon, T., Lumsden, L.F., Meyers, N., Prowse, T.A.A., Weyland, J. and Lawrence, R. (2019) High detectability with low impact: Optimizing large PIT tracking systems for cave‐dwelling bats. Ecology and Evolution 9(19): 10916-10928
White, M., Bhatpurev, K., Salkin, O. and Newell, G. (2019) Primary rainforest mapping in Victoria 2018 - extent and type. Arthur Rylah Institute Technical Report Series No. 309. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Heidelberg, Victoria
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| | ARI Seminar Series
We have one more presentation in our 2019 Seminar Series:on Wednesday 18th December 2-3pm ARI’s Fern Hames will be talking about her experiences aboard the Homeward Bound Antarctica expedition, with a focus on leadership. If you can’t make it to Heidelberg, register for the webinar to listen and view slides online. We look forward to continuing to bring you interesting and diverse topics in 2020.
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| © The State of Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning 2019
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