Evaluating restoration trajectories using DNA metabarcoding of ground-dwelling and airborne invertebrates and associated plant communities.

Invertebrates are important for restoration processes as they are key drivers of many landscape-scale ecosystem functions; including pollination, nutrient cycling and soil formation. However, invertebrates are often overlooked in restoration monitoring because they are highly diverse, poorly described, and time-consuming to survey, and require increasingly scarce taxonomic expertise to enable identification. DNA metabarcoding is a relatively new tool for rapid survey that is able to address some of these concerns, and provide information about the taxa with which invertebrates are interacting via food webs and habitat.

Association of putatively adaptive genetic variation with climatic variables differs between a parasite and its host.

Parasitism is a pervasive phenomenon in nature with the relationship between species driving evolution in both parasite and host. Due to their host-dependent lifestyle, parasites may adapt to the abiotic environment in ways that differ from their hosts or from free-living relatives; yet rarely has this been assessed. Here, we test two competing hypotheses related to whether putatively adaptive genetic variation in a specialist mistletoe associates with the same, or different, climatic variables as its host species.

Contrasting patterns of local adaptation along climatic gradients between a sympatric parasitic and autotrophic tree species.

Sympatric tree species are subject to similar climatic drivers, posing a question as to whether they display comparable adaptive responses. However, no study has explicitly examined local adaptation of co-occurring parasitic and autotrophic plant species to the abiotic environment. Here we test the hypotheses that a generalist parasitic tree would display a weaker signal of selection and that genomic variation would associate with fewer climatic variables (particularly precipitation) but have similar spatial patterns to a sympatric autotrophic tree species.

Testing multiple substrates for terrestrial biodiversity monitoring using environmental DNA metabarcoding.

Biological surveys based on visual identification of the biota are challenging, expensive and time consuming, yet crucial for effective biomonitoring. DNA metabarcoding is a rapidly developing technology that can also facilitate biological surveys. This method involves the use of next generation sequencing technology to determine the community composition of a sample.

High species diversity and turnover in granite inselberg floras highlight the need for a conservation strategy protecting many outcrops.

Determining patterns of plant diversity on granite inselbergs is an important task for conservation biogeography due to mounting threats. However, beyond the tropics there are relatively few quantitative studies of floristic diversity, or consideration of these patterns and their environmental, biogeographic, and historical correlates for conservation. We sought to contribute broader understanding of global patterns of species diversity on granite inselbergs and inform biodiversity conservation in the globally significant Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR).

Persistence and stochasticity are key determinants of genetic diversity in plants associated with banded iron formation inselbergs.

The high species endemism characteristic of many of the world's terrestrial island systems provides a model for studying evolutionary patterns and processes, yet there has been no synthesis of studies to provide a systematic evaluation of terrestrial island systems in this context. The banded iron formations (BIFs) of south-western Australia are ancient terrestrial island formations occurring within a mosaic of alluvial clay soils, sandplains and occasional granite outcropping, across an old, gently undulating, highly weathered, plateau. Notably, these BIFs display exceptionally high beta plant diversity.

Towards an eco-evolutionary understanding of endemism hotspots and refugia.

Background: Refugia are island-like habitats that are linked to long-term environmental stability and, as a result, high endemism. Conservation of refugia and endemism hotspots should be based on a deep ecological and evolutionary understanding of their functioning, which remains limited. Although functional traits can provide such insights, a corresponding, coherent framework is lacking.

The pitfalls of short-range endemism: high vulnerability to ecological and landscape traps.

Ecological traps attract biota to low-quality habitats. Landscape traps are zones caught in a vortex of spiralling degradation. Here, we demonstrate how short-range endemic (SRE) traits may make such taxa vulnerable to ecological and landscape traps.

Microsatellite primers for the rare shrub (Fabaceae).

Premise Of The Study: Microsatellite primers were developed for the rare shrub (Fabaceae) to assess genetic diversity and its spatial structuring.

Methods And Results: Shotgun sequencing on an Illumina MiSeq produced 6,372,575 reads. Using the QDD pipeline, we designed 60 primer pairs, which were screened using PCR.

Microsatellite primers for the rare sedge (Cyperaceae).

Premise Of The Study: Microsatellite markers were developed for the rare sedge (Cyperaceae) to assess genetic variation and its spatial structuring.

Methods And Results: We conducted shotgun sequencing on an Illumina MiSeq and produced 6,215,872 sequence reads. The QDD pipeline was used to design 60 primer pairs that were screened using PCR.

A low-altitude mountain range as an important refugium for two narrow endemics in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region biodiversity hotspot.

Background And Aims: Low-altitude mountains constitute important centres of diversity in landscapes with little topographic variation, such as the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR). They also provide unique climatic and edaphic conditions that may allow them to function as refugia. We investigate whether the Porongurups (altitude 655 m) in the SWAFR will provide a refugium for the endemic Ornduffia calthifolia and O.

Rapid characterisation of vegetation structure to predict refugia and climate change impacts across a global biodiversity hotspot.

Identification of refugia is an increasingly important adaptation strategy in conservation planning under rapid anthropogenic climate change. Granite outcrops (GOs) provide extraordinary diversity, including a wide range of taxa, vegetation types and habitats in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR). However, poor characterization of GOs limits the capacity of conservation planning for refugia under climate change.

Comparative patterns of plant invasions in the Mediterranean biome.

The objective of this work was to compare and contrast the patterns of alien plant invasions in the world's five mediterranean-climate regions (MCRs). We expected landscape age and disturbance history to have bearing on levels of invasion. We assembled a database on naturalized alien plant taxa occurring in natural and semi-natural terrestrial habitats of all five regions (specifically Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus from the Mediterranean Basin, California, central Chile, the Cape Region of South Africa and Southwestern - SW Australia).

Conserving biodiversity efficiently: what to do, where, and when.

Conservation priority-setting schemes have not yet combined geographic priorities with a framework that can guide the allocation of funds among alternate conservation actions that address specific threats. We develop such a framework, and apply it to 17 of the world's 39 Mediterranean ecoregions. This framework offers an improvement over approaches that only focus on land purchase or species richness and do not account for threats.

Applying network analysis to the conservation of habitat trees in urban environments: a case study from Brisbane, Australia.

In Australia more than 300 vertebrates, including 43 insectivorous bat species, depend on hollows in habitat trees for shelter with many species using a network of multiple trees as roosts. We used roost-switching data on white-striped freetail bats (Tadarida australis; Microchiroptera: Molossidae) to construct a network representation of day roosts in suburban Brisbane, Australia. Bats were caught from a communal roost tree with a roosting group of several hundred individuals and released with transmitters.