Observations on the potential loss of threatened species in urbanising Western Sydney: death by a thousand cuts

Abstract

Despite international concern for biodiversity loss, as urban pressure increases on the Cumberland Plain of Western Sydney, the native vegetation continues to be lost despite being classified as an 'endangered ecological community' under both state and federal legislation. While substantial sized remnants may evoke public attention, small developments are often approved without adequate attention to the long term impact on even the threatened species of the Plain. In this paper we provide examples of the way in which remnants that may be only a single housing lot in size, can be habitat for protected species. The ongoing loss of these, often tiny reservoirs, is undoubtedly resulting in the loss of native biodiversity by '1000 cuts'.

Biodiversity offsets: Lessons from the American experience

“…For example, in the remnants of urban Sydney, the species abundance and diversity of canopy arthropods differed between large and small remnants with similar vegetation (Hochuli et al 2004). Since there may now be less than 5% of Cumberland Plain Woodland (McManus 2005), a threatened ecological community of Western Sydney, and remnants in this fragmented landscape continue to be eroded and lost (Wotherspoon and Burgin 2010), it can be assumed that there is a continued loss of biodiversity in this rapidly urbanising area.…”

“…This is pertinent to the situation in peri-urban Western Sydney where agricultural lands and remnant native vegetation are replaced by large housing estates with small gardens consisting of similar plantings, lawn and hard surface characteristics (Burgin 2004). There is also on-going fragmentation of larger blocks that often results in the loss of habitat (including single trees) that are used by threatened species (e.g., squirrel glider Petaurus norfolcensis; grey-headed flying-fox Pteropus poliocephalus; eastern freetail-bat Mormopterus norfolkensis Cumberland Plain land snail Meridolum corneovirens; Wotherspoon and Burgin 2010). This constant erosion of habitat (including degraded habitat) typically leads to a change in the diversity and abundance of native species such as birds (Burgin 2004;Catterall 2004) in the urbanising landscape.…”

The research on irregular volume measurement is based on image gray normalization method and brightness restoration method

“…Based on CT imaging measurement method, it is one of the most potential non-contact measurement technologies at present and has been widely applied in medicine and industry. Due to its nondestructive, it is often applied to non-destructive testing and measurement dimensions of objects, and can deal with the internal structure of objects detection measure (Reis H Ç et al2016) [5].In the field of biomedicine, the common CT imaging technology is applied to the detection and analysis of microscopic imaging processing, histological section analysis, cancer cell recognition, visceral size measurement and shape detection, and tumor property determination (Wotherspoon A D et al2016) [6].In the industrial field: CT imaging technology is often used in nondestructive testing of key parts and components, measurement of geometric quantity of small size parts, metallographic analysis, automatic identification of assembly line parts, 3D shape detection of precision complex parts such as microelectronic devices, on-line measurement of size of large workpiece (such as measuring the length, width, diameter of steel wire online on steel rolling production line), and safety inspection of airport exit and entry and so on (Huttin O et al2016) [7].Unlike other imaging, industrial CT imaging will inevitably have the point diffusion effect introduced by the industrial CT system in the filtering process, and the noise introduced by data acquisition, image reconstruction and volume effect caused by the thickness of the scanning layer (Clanton T O et al2016) [8].…”

Reptiles and Amphibians on a University Campus in a Peri-urban Area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

“…Liu et al 2016). Thus, the need to assess biodiversity in remnant habitats is important (Keast 1995;Shea 2010;Wotherspoon and Burgin 2010).Only a small proportion of wildlife has adaptations that enable it to live in developed areas (Aronson et al 2014). Consequently, green spaces, either remnant natural habitats or anthropogenic substitutes such as urban parks, represent highly valuable areas for biodiversity conservation in urban and peri-urban areas (Gallo et al 2017;Lepczyk et al 2017).…”

“…Liu et al 2016). Thus, the need to assess biodiversity in remnant habitats is important (Keast 1995;Shea 2010;Wotherspoon and Burgin 2010).…”