Approaches to understanding and managing the complexities of woodland & forest declines in Western Australia
Hardy, G.E.S.J., Barber, P., Dell, B., Ruthrof, K., Lyons, T., Hobbs, R., Fleming, P., Moore, S., Baudains, C., Schibeci, R., Veneklaas, E., Poot, P., Renton, M. and Burgess, T. (2011) Approaches to understanding and managing the complexities of woodland & forest declines in Western Australia. In: Asian Association of Societies for Plant Pathology (AASPP) and the Australasian Plant Pathology Society Conference, 26 - 29 April, Darwin, Australia.
In Western Australia there are a number of substantial declines and deaths across a number of forest and woodland tree species. These include Eucalyptus marginata, E. gomphocephela (tuart), E. wandoo (wandoo), E. rudis (swamp gum), Agonis flexuosa (peppermint) and Corymbia calophylla (marri). There are many theories put forward as to the reasons for these declines including: (i) global climate change; (ii) habitat loss and fragmentation; (iii) changes in land management, e.g. the absence of planned fire, damage from wildfires, and past timber harvesting and grazing; (iv) weeds, pests and diseases; (v) salinity; (vi) changes in hydrology; (vii) poorly developed links between research and management; and (viii) sub‐optimal management policies and strategies at Local and State Government levels.
The Centre is made up of three core research organisations, 27 collaborating industry partners and seven collaborating international and national institutions. An overview of these declines, the possible causes, their implications to ecosystem function and health and the different research and adaptive management approaches that are in place to understand and mitigate these declines will be discussed.
|Publication Type:||Conference Item|
|Murdoch Affiliation:||Centre of Excellence for Climate Change and Forest and Woodland Health|
School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology
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