Ranking spring wetlands in the Great Artesian Basin of Australia using endemicity and isolation of plant species

The peat-forming spring wetlands of the Strathbogie plateau - floristics and environmental relationships.

“…To date, the most comprehensive ecological studies of spring wetland vegetation have focused on mound springs associated with the Great Artesian Basin (Fensham & Fairfax 2003, Fensham & Price 2004, Fensham et al 2004a, Fensham et al 2004b. Other studies have investigated the influence of water regime on vegetation patterns and ecosystem function with a view to formulating management directions at broader scales, although fieldbased vegetation community level studies are still generally lacking (Eamus et al 2006, Raulings et al 2010.…”

The ecology of narrow-range endemic macro-invertebrates of Great Artesian Basin springs

“…For those where data is available, it appears common for species to be restricted to a single complex, or numerous complexes in the same locality (see Fensham et al (2011)). Populations of species endemic to the system are rarely found in all springs within an occupied complex, and which springs are occupied tends to change through time (Fensham et al, 2004a,b;Fensham & Price, 2004;Kerezsy & Fensham, 2013;Ponder et al, 1989;Silcock et al, 2011;Worthington-Wilmer et al, 2008;Worthington-Wilmer & Wilcox, 2007). Extirpations in a single spring seem relatively common over decadal time scales, but species persist within their geographic distribution due to an evershifting set of viable populations (Worthington-Wilmer et al, 2011).…”

“…However, appraisals of the species that compose the "threatened community", their distribution, and the information available about them generally remain taxon (e.g. plants (Fensham & Price, 2004;Silcock et al, 2011), gastropods (Ponder & Slatyer, 2010)) or locality specific (De Deckker, 1979; and, to date, the extensive review that accompanied the original Recovery Plan remains the only system-wide analysis of biodiversity across the full range of taxa in the system . Some species identified as being at particularly high extinction risk are afforded additional protection through individual listing (e.g.…”

“…This system incorporates the number of species at a complex, the number of complexes each species occupies and the isolation of the population of the species at each complex from populations in other complexes (see Fensham & Price (2004)). We used their method, but expand the taxa list to include plants, fishes and invertebrates.…”

Degraded or just dusty?: 150 years of ecological change in inland eastern Australia

“…Aquatic forbs and shrubs account for just 2% and 14% of the regional flora but make up 11% and 21% of threatened species list, respectively. The listing of species from springs is certainly justified given their restricted habitat that has been devastated since European settlement (Fensham and Fairfax 2003;Fensham and Price 2004). Mountain ranges are recognised as important refugia (Fjeldsa and Lovett 1997) and many ranges across inland Australia harbour rare and specialised species (Crisp et al 2001;Preece et al 2007;Byrne et al 2008).…”