Journal articles on the topic 'Landscapes Victoria'
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Bird, Dr Juliet, and Prof Bernie Joyce. "The National Trust and landscape heritage in Victoria: recent assessments of volcanic landscapes in Western Victoria." ASEG Extended Abstracts 2006, no. 1 (December 2006): 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/aseg2006ab080.
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Bishop, Ian D., and Sophie Atkinson. "Understanding New Landscapes." International Journal of E-Planning Research 1, no. 4 (October 2012): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijepr.2012100101.
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The pace of transition to new energy sources, and away from fossil fuels, is as hard to predict as any other impact of climate change. However, it appears inevitable that a transition will be made eventually. In some countries, notably Germany and Denmark, the process is already well underway. In others it is just beginning. This article uses the situation of the state of Victoria in southern Australia to explore the possible extent of landscape change under a move to renewable energy sources, and to explore the key variables and tools for analysis and communication which will identify the consequences and support planning. A scenario for a future level of wind power generation in Victoria is proposed, potential sites identified and then the visual impact of these analyzed, not simply on a case-by-case basis but as a system of facilities across the landscape. People travelling by road, or train, will be particularly aware of the extent to which the change is pervasive and new parameters and representations are proposed for documentation of these dynamic visual landscape outcomes.
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Broome, Richard. "Changing Aboriginal landscapes of pastoral Victoria, 1830–1850." Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 31, no. 2 (June 2011): 88–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2011.556368.
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F. Bennett, Andrew, and Leigh A. Ford. "Land use, habitat change and the conservation of birds in fragmented rural environments: a landscape perspective from the Northern Plains, Victoria, Australia." Pacific Conservation Biology 3, no. 3 (1997): 244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc970244.
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Studies of the effects of habitat fragmentation on birds have mainly been carried out at the patch scale, by censusing birds in patches of different size, shape or composition. Here, we use data collected by observers for the Atlas of Australian Birds from 10' latitude/longitude grid cells (landscapes), each 277 km2 in size, to examine the effects of land use and habitat change at the landscape scale in the Northern Plains region of Victoria, Australia. Land birds were tallied for 63 such landscapes and species were classed as "woodland" or "other" species. Attributes measured for each landscape represented natural environmental variation, tree cover and the intensity of human settlement. The Northern Plains has experienced profound environmental change over the last century of agricultural settlement and tree cover now occupies only 6.2% of the region, mostly as large riverine forests. Eighty per cent of landscapes have less than 10% tree cover. Woodland birds showed substantial variation in richness between landscapes and, after accounting for sampling effort, species richness was best predicted by total tree cover and measures of environmental variation (e.g., number of streams). "Other" birds were more evenly distributed between landscapes. Species richness was best predicted by the environmental gradient in rainfall and temperature, although this accounted for only a small amount of variance after correcting for sampling effort. The predictive model for woodland birds indicates that this group is sensitive to habitat change, and implies a substantial loss of species in landscapes that have been almost entirely cleared of woodland habitat. The logarithmic nature of the relationship means that the rate of change in species richness is greatest during the final stages of habitat depletion. With median tree cover of 3.7% for landscapes in the region, this relationship supports the contention that a major decline in woodland birds is underway and that species are being lost from whole landscapes across the region. Attributes associated with landscapes of high conservation value for birds include: extensive overall tree cover, large blocks of woodland habitat, and stream systems with associated habitat connectivity. In this region, these attributes are more likely to occur in areas with broad-acre agriculture rather than intensive irrigation. The analysis suggests that at least 10% tree cover is a minimum goal for an infrastructure of natural vegetation in rural landscapes to prevent serious decline and loss in the woodland avifauna.
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Johnson, Matthew, Paul Reich, and Ralph Mac Nally. "Bird assemblages of a fragmented agricultural landscape and the relative importance of vegetation structure and landscape pattern." Wildlife Research 34, no. 3 (2007): 185. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr06103.
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Many of the world’s agricultural areas have greatly reduced levels of natural vegetation. This results in highly fragmented mosaic landscapes with multiple land-use types. We examined the importance of vegetation and landscape pattern by comparing the bird assemblages of riparian zones, non-riparian forest patches, and pasture in a fragmented agricultural landscape in south-eastern Australia. Bird surveys were conducted every four weeks at 27 sites in the Goldfields region of central Victoria for one year. The landscape context (position and shape of patches) and vegetation attributes were measured for each site. We found that bird assemblages strongly differed among these landscape elements. Mean abundance was significantly greater at forested patches, and there was a three-fold reduction in species richness at pasture sites. Bird assemblage structure was influenced substantially more by vegetation than by the landscape context of sites. Our results indicate that riparian vegetation is a key element for avian diversity, even in massively altered landscapes. The restoration of riparian vegetation and its connectivity with adjacent forest types would greatly benefit bird assemblages in agricultural areas.
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Lada, Hania, Carla Neville, Briarna Lacey, Ralph Mac Nally, P. Sam Lake, and Andrea C. Taylor. "Historic and current genetic population structure in two pond-dwelling macroinvertebrates in massively altered Australian woodland landscapes." Marine and Freshwater Research 61, no. 11 (2010): 1318. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf10053.
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Aquatic ecosystems around the world have been massively altered through vegetation clearance and changed flow regimes accompanying agricultural development. Impacts may include disrupted dispersal for aquatic species. We investigated this in lentic (standing) waterbodies in agricultural and predominantly forested landscapes of the box-ironbark region of central Victoria, Australia. We hypothesised that higher representation in forested than agricultural landscapes (i.e. ‘forest-bias’) for a species may reflect an ability to disperse more easily through the former, resulting in lower genetic structure in forested than in agricultural landscapes. Conversely, ‘cosmopolitan’ species would show no difference in genetic structure between landscape types. Molecular genetic analyses of a forest-biased diving beetle, Necterosoma wollastoni, and a cosmopolitan waterboatman, Micronecta gracilis, revealed the following, for both species: (1) no evidence for long-term barriers to gene flow in the region, (2) lack of contemporary genetic differentiation over 30 000 km2 and (3) random distribution of related genotypes in space, implying that neither forest nor farmland inhibits their dispersal in a concerted fashion. Taken together, these results indicate very high gene flow and dispersal in the past and present for both these species. Massive landscape change may have little impact on movement patterns of lentic invertebrates that have evolved high dispersal capabilities.
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Conway, Paul. "Thea Musgrave round-up." Tempo 57, no. 226 (October 2003): 50–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s004029820325035x.
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‘Pierrot Dreaming’. MUSGRAVE: Canta! Canta!; Ring Out Wild Bells; Threnody; Pierrot; Chamber Concerto No. 2. Victoria Soames Samek (cl), Gabrielle Byam-Grounds (fl), David Le Page (vn/va), Matthew Sharp (vc), Mark Troop (pno). Clarinet Classics CC0038.‘The Fall of Narcissus’. MUSGRAVE: Serenade; Narcissus; Impromptu for flute and cello; Wind Quintet; Impromptu No. 2 for flute, oboe and clarinet; Four Portraits for baritone, clarinet and piano. Victoria Soames Samek (cl), Members of English Serenata, David Le Page (va), Matthew Sharp (vc), Stephen Varcoe (bar), Rachel Masters (hp). Clarinet Classics CC0039.MUSGRAVE: Memento Vitae; Helios; Night Music; The Seasons. Nicholas Daniel (ob), Scottish Chamber Orchestra c. Nicholas Kraemer; BBC Symphony Orchestra c. Jac van Steen. NMC (ANCORA+) D074.‘Oriental Landscapes’. MUSGRAVE: Journey Through a Japanese Landscape. CHEN YI: Percussion Concerto. ZHOU LONG: Out of Tang Court. HOVHANESS: Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints. Evelyn Glennie (perc), Singapore Symphony Orchestra c. Lan Shui. BIS CD 1222.
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Moxham, Claire, and Josh Dorrough. "Recruitment of Eucalyptus strzeleckii (Myrtaceae) in intensive livestock production landscapes." Australian Journal of Botany 56, no. 6 (2008): 469. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/bt07187.
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Eucalyptus strzeleckii K. Rule (Strzelecki gum) is a medium-to-tall forest swamp gum, endemic to Victoria and listed as Nationally Vulnerable in Australia. This species occurs in the high rainfall (up to 1600 mm) region of Gippsland in south-eastern Victoria. The region has been intensively developed for agriculture, in particular dairy production. Surviving trees are often old and in varying stages of dieback and natural recruitment is rarely observed. The removal of cattle-grazing as a sole mechanism to encourage recruitment is rarely sufficient to promote regeneration of this species. The aim of this study was to examine the role of soil disturbance, weed competition, seed supply and parent plant competition, in the absence of cattle-grazing, in the recruitment of E. strzeleckii. Seed availability, distance from mature tree, soil disturbance, soil moisture and pasture competition all influenced seedling establishment and survival in the field. Removal of ground layer vegetation immediately before seedling emergence appears to be essential for successful establishment of E. strzeleckii. However, both soil disturbance and pasture removal by spraying had similar effects, suggesting that competition rather than soil disturbance per se is a limiting factor in these environments. In the absence of understorey vegetation manipulation, regeneration by this species is unlikely even in the absence of grazing.
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Zhang, Shihao, Junhe Tan, Junhang Liu, Jiaqi Wang, and Ata Tara. "Suitability Prediction and Enhancement of Future Water Supply Systems in Barwon Region in Victoria, Australia." Land 11, no. 5 (April 23, 2022): 621. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land11050621.
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Intensive agricultural production accompanied by the climate change impacts in post-Colonial rural landscapes have continuously increased the demand for water resources and coastal areas, showing an unprecedented water supply crisis. By taking extreme weather conditions and rainfall events for future trends, a resilient water storage facility for the landscape requires the collaborative approach of natural systems and simulation modelling techniques to develop sustainable future scenarios. In this study, an ecological suitability model is used to identify potential sites for the construction of multi-purpose dams. As part of the model structure, multi factors are classified using the patterns of changing landscapes, and then weighted overlay analysis is conducted on a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform. Compared to previous studies, this paper derives its principal impact parameters and projections based on historical land cover information. The suitability maps that are generated visually guide the geographical location of the multi-purpose dams and indicate the areas from highly suitable to least suitable, clarifying the possibility of building blue infrastructure alongside the waterways in west-central Barwon. The workflow proposes a resilient water system based on existing land characteristics and measures that future water storage capacity will be a valid increase of approximately 1.5 times. This strategy alleviates water scarcity during the dry season to benefit traditional agricultural activities. Digital calculations are utilized to demonstrate the feasibility of the experimental results, providing a methodology for regulating the distribution and supply of river flows throughout the year while retaining runoff in a hierarchical pattern at precipitation periods.
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Carter, Andrew, and Gary W. Luck. "Fox baiting in agricultural landscapes: preliminary findings on the importance of bait-site selection." Wildlife Research 40, no. 3 (2013): 184. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr12169.
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Context Little is known about the importance of bait-site selection during lethal fox-baiting programmes. Improved bait placement may increase the efficacy of baiting and help reduce fox impacts on wildlife and livestock. Aims To determine whether bait uptake by the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) differed among five landscape elements (roadsides, fence lines, open paddocks, creek lines and remnant vegetation) and at sites with high or low habitat (ground cover) complexity. Methods We measured bait uptake at 300 bait stations distributed evenly among the landscape elements in agricultural landscapes in northern Victoria, Australia. Bait uptake was also compared between sites with low and high habitat complexity in districts subject to no fox control and annual fox control. Key results Among landscape elements, bait uptake was significantly higher in roadside vegetation and along vegetated creek lines than it was along fence lines and in open paddocks (P < 0.05 in each case). Within roadside vegetation, bait uptake was significantly (P = 0.001) lower at sites with a high habitat complexity than at sites with low complexity, particularly in areas subject to annual fox control. Conclusions Bait placement influences bait-uptake rates considerably and greater consideration should be placed on bait-site selection during fox-baiting programmes. Habitat complexity limited bait uptake, which may indicate a reduced capacity of foxes to find baits in complex habitats. Implications Our results should help improve bait-site selection in agricultural landscapes and may increase the efficacy of fox baiting to the benefit of native fauna and livestock.
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Llausàs, Albert, Michael Buxton, and Ruth Beilin. "Spatial planning and changing landscapes: a failure of policy in peri-urban Victoria, Australia." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 59, no. 7 (September 17, 2015): 1304–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2015.1074888.
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Forouzangohar, Mohsen, Neville D. Crossman, Richard J. MacEwan, D. Dugal Wallace, and Lauren T. Bennett. "Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes: A Spatially Explicit Approach to Support Sustainable Soil Management." Scientific World Journal 2014 (2014): 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/483298.
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Soil degradation has been associated with a lack of adequate consideration of soil ecosystem services. We demonstrate a broadly applicable method for mapping changes in the supply of two priority soil ecosystem services to support decisions about sustainable land-use configurations. We used a landscape-scale study area of 302 km2in northern Victoria, south-eastern Australia, which has been cleared for intensive agriculture. Indicators representing priority soil services (soil carbon sequestration and soil water storage) were quantified and mapped under both a current and a future 25-year land-use scenario (the latter including a greater diversity of land uses and increased perennial crops and irrigation). We combined diverse methods, including soil analysis using mid-infrared spectroscopy, soil biophysical modelling, and geostatistical interpolation. Our analysis suggests that the future land-use scenario would increase the landscape-level supply of both services over 25 years. Soil organic carbon content and water storage to 30 cm depth were predicted to increase by about 11% and 22%, respectively. Our service maps revealed the locations of hotspots, as well as potential trade-offs in service supply under new land-use configurations. The study highlights the need to consider diverse land uses in sustainable management of soil services in changing agricultural landscapes.
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A. McCarthy, Michael, Alan Webster, Richard H. Loyn, and Kim W. Lowe. "Uncertainty in assessing the viability of the Powerful Owl Ninox strenua in Victoria, Australia." Pacific Conservation Biology 5, no. 2 (1999): 144. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc990144.
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A model of the metapopulation dynamics of Powerful Owls Ninox strenua in Victoria, Australia is described, and its parameters were derived from available data. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the survival rate of adult owls is the most important parameter in the model. Because estimates of this parameter are uncertain, the predictions of the model are uncertain and unreliable. Using the best estimates of the parameters, the predicted risk of decline across Victoria is low, and local populations larger than 100 pairs have a low risk of extinction. If the lower estimates of adult and sub-adult survival are used, the abundance of Powerful Owls across Victoria is predicted to decline exponentially and faces extinction from deterministic forces. A prohibitively large field programme involving monitoring of individuallyrecognizable owls would be required to obtain an improved estimate of adult survival, and so further use of population viability analysis to assess the adequacy of particular management strategies is unlikely to be useful for this species. An alternative is to establish a long-term monitoring programme to document changes in abundance of the species in logged and unlogged landscapes.
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C. Lefroy, E., and F. P. Smith. "The biodiversity values of farming systems and agricultural landscapes." Pacific Conservation Biology 10, no. 2 (2004): 80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc040080.
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The current effort in Australia to increase the proportion of perennial vegetation in agricultural landscapes to manage dryland salinity presents opportunities to improve the viability of remnant vegetation and its dependant biota. At this intersection of ecology and agriculture, many questions arise concerning interpretations of biodiversity from the perspectives of landowners and conservationists, the conservation priorities in agricultural landscapes, and the role of ecological science in understanding the functional contribution of emerging perennial-plant based farming systems to the viability of the native biota. This paper provides the background for the four papers that follow, presented originally at a workshop at Rutherglen in Victoria in October 2003 to discuss the issue of biodiversity values in agricultural landscapes. It then puts forward an approach to research into the biodiversity value of perennial land use systems based on three principles; understanding regional conservation priorities, appreciating farm scale priorities and constraints from the perspective of the landholder, and identifying response functions to establish the role of revegetation in maintaining the viability of the native biota.
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OBERHOLZER, PETER, CARLO BARONI, JOERG M. SCHAEFER, GIUSEPPE OROMBELLI, SUSAN IVY OCHS, PETER W. KUBIK, HEINRICH BAUR, and RAINER WIELER. "Limited Pliocene/Pleistocene glaciation in Deep Freeze Range, northern Victoria Land, Antarctica, derived from in situ cosmogenic nuclides." Antarctic Science 15, no. 4 (December 2003): 493–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954102003001603.
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The question of how stable the climate in Antarctica has been during the last few million years compared to the rest of the planet is still controversial. This study attempts to add new information to the discussion by reconstructing the timing and spatial extent of glacial advances in northern Victoria Land over tens of thousands to millions of years. In Terra Nova Bay region, surface exposure ages and erosion rates of glacially rounded bedrock and glacial erratics have been determined using the cosmogenic nuclides 3He, 10Be and 21Ne. Three morphological units have been analysed. They yield minimum ages of 11 to 34 ka, 309 ka, and 2.6 Ma, respectively. Erosion rates were as low as 20 cm Ma−1 since middle Pliocene time. Taking erosion into account, the oldest surface is 5.3 Ma old. Pleistocene glacier advances had considerable extent, reaching up to 780 m above modern ice levels, but have been restricted to the valleys since at least mid-Pliocene. The existence of landscapes of mid-Pliocene age in northern Victoria Land implies that the climatic stability of the McMurdo Dry Valleys is not unique within the Transantarctic Mountains, but rather the expression of a constantly cold and hyperarid climate regime in entire Victoria Land.
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Builth, Heather, A. Peter Kershaw, Chris White, Anna Roach, Lee Hartney, Merna McKenzie, Tara Lewis, and Geraldine Jacobsen. "Environmental and cultural change on the Mt Eccles lava-flow landscapes of southwest Victoria, Australia." Holocene 18, no. 3 (May 2008): 413–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683607087931.
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J. Antos, Mark, and John G. White. "Birds of remnant vegetation on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia: the role of interiors, edges and roadsides." Pacific Conservation Biology 9, no. 4 (2003): 294. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc040294.
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Habitat loss and fragmentation on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia, has resulted in a mosaic of forest patches, forest edges abutted by agricultural land and linear habitat strips amidst a human-modified land matrix. To examine the use of forest elements by the avifauna in this landscape, bird populations were sampled along fixed transects established within forest interiors, on forest edges and along forested roadsides. A total of 60 species was recorded during this study, five of which were introduced. Species richness and diversity did not differ significantly between the three habitat elements, but avifaunal composition varied considerably. The species assemblages of all habitat elements differed significantly, with forest interiors and roadsides showing the greatest difference and forest interiors and forest edges showing the least degree of difference. Forest-dependent bird species used both interiors and edges. Interiors differed from edges and roadsides in having lower abundances of open country species, predatory species and introduced species, A clear gradient of change in bird communities from forest interiors to roadside vegetation was observed. This study suggests that the interiors of medium-sized (<1 000 ha) patches may play an important role in conserving bird biodiversity on a local level as they provide refuge for forest-dependent native species in extensively cleared landscapes.
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Sheffield, Kathryn J., Daniel Clements, Darryl J. Clune, Angela Constantine, and Tony M. Dugdale. "Detection of Aquatic Alligator Weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) from Aerial Imagery Using Random Forest Classification." Remote Sensing 14, no. 11 (June 2, 2022): 2674. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs14112674.
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Alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb) forms dense infestations in aquatic environments and is the focus of intensive management programs in many jurisdictions within Australia, including Victoria. A critical component of weed biosecurity programs is surveillance to find the location and extent of the target weed so that control strategies can be implemented. Current approaches within Victoria rely heavily on ground surveys and community reporting. However, these methods do not provide a systematic approach to surveillance across landscapes, resulting in undiscovered infestations. The aim of this study was to detect alligator weed from aerial photography and demonstrate the potential use of remote sensing data to support existing ground surveys and monitoring programs. Two random forest algorithms were trained based on data from 2010 and 2016. Both classifiers had high levels of accuracy, with an overall pixel-based classification accuracy of 96.8% in 2010 and 98.2% in 2016. The trained classifiers were then applied to imagery acquired annually between 2010 and 2016. The classification outputs were combined with class probability and water proximity data to produce a weighted, normalised alligator weed likelihood data layer. These datasets were evaluated by assessing alligator weed patch detection rates, using manually delineated areas of weed for each year. The patch detection rates for each year ranged from 76.5% to 100%. The results also demonstrate the use of this approach for monitoring alligator weed infestations at a site over time. The key outcome of the study is an approach to support existing biosecurity monitoring and surveillance efforts at a landscape scale and at known infested localised sites.
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Polyakov, Maksym, David J. Pannell, Ram Pandit, Sorada Tapsuwan, and Geoff Park. "Valuing Environmental Assets on Rural Lifestyle Properties." Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 42, no. 1 (April 2013): 159–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s106828050000767x.
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Lifestyle landowners value land for its amenities and ecological characteristics and could play an important role in managing and conserving native vegetation in multifunctional rural landscapes. We quantify values of ecosystem services captured by owners of rural lifestyle properties in Victoria, Australia, using a spatial hedonic property price model. The value of ecosystem services provided by native vegetation is maximized when that vegetation occupies about 40 percent of the area of a lifestyle property. Since the current median proportion of native vegetation is 15 percent, most lifestyle landowners could benefit from increasing the area of native vegetation on their properties.
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A. McAlpine, C., D. B. Lindenmayer, T. J. Eyre, and S. R. Phinn. "Landscape surrogates of forest fragmentation: Synthesis of Australian Montreal Process case studies." Pacific Conservation Biology 8, no. 2 (2002): 108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/pc020108.
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Habitat loss and fragmentation are key biodiversity indicators of the Montreal Protocol for monitoring progress towards ecologically sustainable forest management. Over the last 15 years, an array of landscape metrics have been developed as spatial measures of habitat loss and fragmentation. However, most metrics require rigorous empirical testing if they are to provide scientifically credible information to managers and policy makers. We present a synthesis of three Australian case studies for developing Montreal Indicator 1.1e, fragmentation of forest type, each representing different levels of landscape modification: St Mary State Forest, south-east Queensland; Tumut, southern New South Wales; and the Central Highlands, Victoria. Collectively, the studies found that no single landscape metric captured the response of the target species and fauna assemblages, or served as a reliable ecological surrogate for the conservation of a large set of species. Rather, species demonstrated a diversity of responses to habitat loss and fragmentation. Fragmentation effects were more important for the Tumut study, but not important for the Central Highlands study. Stand-scale habitat variables and area of suitable habitat were dominant explanatory variables for the St Mary study. Differences in observed response are partly explained by: (i) differences in landscape structure, particularly the proportion of preferred forest habitat remaining; (ii) differences in the ecology of target species; and (iii) the insensitivity of the landscape measures. Based on the outcomes of the three case studies, we propose principles for developing landscape surrogates for conserving biodiversity in Australia's eucalypt forest landscapes.
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Christensen, Johanna, and Kamal Gaire. "Understanding sustainable landscapes through the lens of apple growing: cases of Jumla, Nepal and Harcourt, Victoria." Sustainability Science 10, no. 2 (October 30, 2014): 275–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-014-0273-5.
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Isaac, Bronwyn, John White, Daniel Ierodiaconou, and Raylene Cooke. "Response of a cryptic apex predator to a complete urban to forest gradient." Wildlife Research 40, no. 5 (2013): 427. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr13087.
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Context Urbanisation is one of the most damaging landscape-scale disturbance processes leading to significant and potentially irreversible changes in biodiversity. How apex predators respond to urbanisation is poorly understood, largely because of their low density and low detectability. Given the important functional roles of apex predators in ecosystems, it is critical that research investigates how they respond to urbanisation, and how urban systems can be designed to better support apex predators. Aims The present research aims to examine how an avian apex predator, the powerful owl, responds to a complete urban–forest gradient in southern Victoria, Australia. Specifically, the research aims to understand the environmental attributes that drive habitat suitability for powerful owls across the urban–forest gradient. Methods Using a total of 683 independent field- and atlas-derived records of powerful owls across the study site, the research takes a presence-only modelling approach. The presence points were modelled against a series of geospatial variables that were determined a priori on the basis of the known ecology of powerful owls. Key results Potential powerful owl habitat declined in a dramatic fashion in response to increasing levels of urbanisation, ranging from 76% of the forest landscape to 21% of the urban landscape. Powerful owl habitat availability across the urban–forest gradient is positively influenced by tree cover, productivity (normalised difference vegetation index) and proximity to river systems and riparian vegetation. Conclusions Presence-only modelling has provided a useful way for investigating the response of an apex predator to a gradient of urbanisation. Although powerful owl habitat availability is negatively reduced by urbanisation, there is significant scope to manage urban landscapes to either maintain or improve the availability of habitat across the gradient. Implications High resource-requiring species, such as apex predators, have the capacity to be detrimentally affected by urbanisation processes. Presence-only modelling, however, provides a useful tool for investigating how these difficult-to-detect species are affected by urbanisation, and ultimately inform how landscapes can be managed to maximise habitat availability for apex predators.
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SÁNCHEZ DUEÑAS, Blas. "EL ARTE DE LA CONTEMPLACIÓN Y DE LA SENSORIALIDAD EN LA GÉNESIS CREATIVA DE MARÍA VICTORIA ATENCIA." Signa: Revista de la Asociación Española de Semiótica 30 (January 6, 2021): 647. http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/signa.vol30.2021.27089.
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Resumen: La producción lírica de María Victoria Atencia se eleva como un todo orgánico atravesado por unos mismos componentes poéticos y técnicos. La importancia de lo cotidiano, la sustantividad de intertextos y referentes artísticos y el alcance de los entornos del paisanaje vital conforman algunos de los ejes discursivos centrales de su obra. El presente trabajo indaga en la trascendencia de los referentes sensoriales, en especial del sentido de la vista, como claves para elaboración de una lírica donde el mundo exterior, captado sensorialmente, se convierte en onda de expansión desde la que emerge, convertido en poesía, el mundo interior de la autora.Abstract: María Victoria Atencia’s body of lyrical poetry stands as an organic whole woven together by a set of shared poetic and technical threads. The importance of everyday life, the substantivity of intertexts and artistic references, and the scope of vital landscapes constitute some of the central discursive axes of her creative practice. This work explores the transcendence of these sensorial references, especially the sense of sight, as key to the production of a unique body of lyrical works in which the external world, sensorially captured, becomes a wave of expansion from which the author’s interior world.
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Barrett, J. E., R. A. Virginia, D. H. Wall, S. C. Cary, B. J. Adams, A. L. Hacker, and J. M. Aislabie. "Co-variation in soil biodiversity and biogeochemistry in northern and southern Victoria Land, Antarctica." Antarctic Science 18, no. 4 (November 14, 2006): 535–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954102006000587.
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Data from six sites in Victoria Land (72–77°S) investigating co-variation in soil communities (microbial and invertebrate) with biogeochemical properties showthe influence of soil properties on habitat suitability varied among local landscapes as well as across climate gradients. Species richness of metazoan invertebrates (Nematoda, Tardigrada and Rotifera) was similar to previous descriptions in this region, though identification of three cryptic nematode species of Eudorylaimus through DNA analysis contributed to the understanding of controls over habitat preferences for individual species. Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis profiles revealed unexpectedly high diversity of bacteria. Distribution of distinct bacterial communities was associated with specific sites in northern and southern Victoria Land, as was the distribution of nematode and tardigrade species. Variation in soil metazoan communities was related to differences in soil organic matter, while bacterial diversity and community structure were not strongly correlated with any single soil property. There were no apparent correlations between metazoan and bacterial diversity, suggesting that controls over distribution and habitat suitability are different for bacterial and metazoan communities. Our results imply that top-down controls over bacterial diversity mediated by their metazoan consumers are not significant determinants of bacterial community structure and biomass in these ecosystems.
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Thomas, Nicholas. "Colonial Conversions: Difference, Hierarchy, and History in Early Twentieth-Century Evangelical Propaganda." Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 2 (April 1992): 366–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0010417500017722.
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Colonial discourse, sometimes referred to in the singular, seems unmanageably vast and heterogeneous, for it must encompass not only the broad field of colonialism's relations and representations which constitutes or arises from the business of official rule, including administrative reports and censuses, but also the works of metropolitan literature and other forms of high culture which deploy images of the exotic or the primitive, paintings of unfamiliar landscapes, tourist guides, anthropological studies, and Oriental fabric designs. Colonial discourse includes chinoiserie, Kim, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Camus' Algerian stories, Frans Post, and Indiana Jones, as well as the Vital Statistics of the Native Population for the Year 1887 and the annual reports from wherever.
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Onyango, Dancan Otieno, Christopher O. Ikporukpo, John O. Taiwo, and Stephen B. Opiyo. "Land Use and Land Cover Change as an Indicator of Watershed Urban Development in the Kenyan Lake Victoria Basin." International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning 16, no. 2 (April 23, 2021): 335–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.18280/ijsdp.160213.
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The socio-economic and ecological value of Lake Victoria is threatened by significant regional development and urbanization. This study analyzed spatial-temporal land use/land cover changes in the Kenyan Lake Victoria basin from 1978–2018 using Landsat 3, 4-5 and 8 imagery, with a view to identifying the extent and potential impacts of urbanization on the basin. Supervised image classification was undertaken following the Maximum Likelihood algorithm to generate land use/land cover maps at ten-year intervals. Results indicate that the basin is characterized by six main land use/land cover classes namely, agricultural land, water bodies, grasslands and vegetation, bare land, forests and built-up areas. Further, the results indicate that the basin has experienced net increases in built-up areas (+97.56%), forests (+17.30%) and agricultural land (+3.54%) over the last 40 years. During the same period, it experienced net losses in grassland and vegetation (-37.36%), bare land (-9.28%) and water bodies (-2.19%). Generally, the changing landscapes in the basin are characterized by conversion of natural environments to built-up environments and driven by human activities, urban populations and public policy decisions. The study therefore recommends the establishment of a land use system that creates a balance between the ecological realm and sustainable development.
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Li, You, Melanie L. Lancaster, Susan M. Carthew, Jasmin G. Packer, and Steven J. B. Cooper. "Delineation of conservation units in an endangered marsupial, the southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus obesulus), in South Australia/western Victoria, Australia." Australian Journal of Zoology 62, no. 5 (2014): 345. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/zo14038.
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Conservation programs for threatened species are greatly benefiting from genetic data, for their power in providing knowledge of dispersal/gene flow across fragmented landscapes and for identifying populations of high conservation value. The endangered southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus obesulus) has a disjunct distribution range in South Australia, raising the possibility that populations of the subspecies may represent distinct conservation units. In the current study, we used a combination of 14 microsatellite and two mitochondrial sequence markers to investigate the phylogeography and population structure of I. o. obesulus in South Australia and south-western Victoria, with the aim of identifying any potential evolutionarily significant units and management units relevant to conservation management. Our phylogenetic/population analyses supported the presence of two distinct evolutionary lineages of I. o. obesulus. The first lineage comprised individuals from the Mount Lofty Ranges, Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. A second lineage comprised individuals from the south-east of South Australia and south-western Victoria. We propose that these two lineages represent distinct evolutionarily significant units and should be managed separately for conservation purposes. The findings also raise significant issues for the national conservation status of I. o. obesulus and suggest that the current subspecies classification needs further investigation.
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Cramer, Lorinda. "‘Busy, Without Thimbles, at the Needlework’: Men’s Sewing and Masculinity on the Victorian Goldfields, 1851–1861." Journal of Victorian Culture 25, no. 2 (January 16, 2020): 153–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcz063.
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Abstract Australia’s gold-rush history has long been dominated by narratives of male adventure: of landscapes where men lived side by side, mateship took on increasing importance in the pursuit of gold, masculine behaviours and manners were emphasized and domesticity was shunned. In the early years of the rich discoveries of gold, men often travelled alone to the colony of Victoria in their search for wealth. This article examines a situation this unique environment created: where men unaccompanied by women – although women, too, were present on the diggings – were required to adopt practices perceived as feminine. It focuses in on needlework to explore the tensions that emerged given sewing was a defining female occupation during the nineteenth century, inhabiting a central place in the female experience. As this article highlights, sewing became an essential practice for men on the Victorian goldfields in order to keep themselves clothed, warm and dry. I consider how men approached their sewing tasks given needlework’s inextricable link with women, and the various strategies they used to frame their sewing in letters, diaries and memoirs – sometimes for close friends and family alone, and other times for wider dissemination. Drawing on sociological frameworks on constructions of gender, masculinity and manliness, I then consider how a shifting engagement with domestic practices may have strengthened rather than challenged identity on the goldfields.
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Dorph, Annalie, Erica Marshall, Kate A. Parkins, and Trent D. Penman. "Modelling ignition probability for human- and lightning-caused wildfires in Victoria, Australia." Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 22, no. 10 (October 24, 2022): 3487–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3487-2022.
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Abstract. Wildfires pose a significant risk to people and property, which is expected to grow with urban expansion into fire-prone landscapes and climate change causing increases in fire extent, severity and frequency. Identifying spatial patterns associated with wildfire activity is important for assessing the potential impacts of wildfires on human life, property and other values. Here, we model the probability of fire ignitions in vegetation across Victoria, Australia, to determine the key drivers of human- and lightning-caused wildfire ignitions. In particular, we extend previous research to consider the role that fuel moisture has in predicting ignition probability while accounting for environmental and local conditions previously identified as important. We used Random Forests to test the effect of variables measuring infrastructure, topography, climate, fuel and soil moisture, fire history, and local weather conditions to investigate what factors drove ignition probability for human- and lightning-caused ignitions. Human-caused ignitions were predominantly influenced by measures of infrastructure and local weather. Lightning-sourced ignitions were driven by fuel moisture, average annual rainfall and local weather. Both human- and lightning-caused ignitions were influenced by dead fuel moisture with ignitions more likely to occur when dead fuel moisture dropped below 20 %. In future, these models of ignition probability may be used to produce spatial likelihood maps, which will improve our models of future wildfire risk and enable land managers to better allocate resources to areas of increased fire risk during the fire season.
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Laming, Alice, Michael-Shawn Fletcher, Anthony Romano, Russell Mullett, Simon Connor, Michela Mariani, S. Yoshi Maezumi, and Patricia S. Gadd. "The Curse of Conservation: Empirical Evidence Demonstrating That Changes in Land-Use Legislation Drove Catastrophic Bushfires in Southeast Australia." Fire 5, no. 6 (October 26, 2022): 175. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/fire5060175.
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Protecting “wilderness” and removing human involvement in “nature” was a core pillar of the modern conservation movement through the 20th century. Conservation approaches and legislation informed by this narrative fail to recognise that Aboriginal people have long valued, used, and shaped most landscapes on Earth. Aboriginal people curated open and fire-safe Country for millennia with fire in what are now forested and fire-prone regions. Settler land holders recognised the importance of this and mimicked these practices. The Land Conservation Act of 1970 in Victoria, Australia, prohibited burning by settler land holders in an effort to protect natural landscapes. We present a 120-year record of vegetation and fire regime change from Gunaikurnai Country, southeast Australia. Our data demonstrate that catastrophic bushfires first impacted the local area immediately following the prohibition of settler burning in 1970, which allowed a rapid increase in flammable eucalypts that resulted in the onset of catastrophic bushfires. Our data corroborate local narratives on the root causes of the current bushfire crisis. Perpetuation of the wilderness myth in conservation may worsen this crisis, and it is time to listen to and learn from Indigenous and local people, and to empower these communities to drive research and management agendas.
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Bennett, AF. "Microhabitat use by the long-nosed potoroo, Potorous tridactylus, and other small mammals in remnant forest vegetation, south-western Victoria." Wildlife Research 20, no. 3 (1993): 267. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr9930267.
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Microhabitat use by the long-nosed potoroo, Potorous tridactylus, and six other species of small mammal was studied in remnant forest vegetation in south-western Victoria, Australia. Throughout its geographic range, P. tridactylus is consistently associated with dense vegetation in the ground and shrub strata. However, at a local scale, captures of P. tridactylus were not clearly associated with a particular floristic group, and were not strongly correlated with any structural feature of the vegetation. Rather, individuals utilised a range of sites of differing floristic composition and vegetation density. Dense cover provided diurnal shelter and protection from predators, whereas food resources were most abundant in adjacent more open areas. The use of vegetation mosaics or ecotones that allow the inclusion of contrasting microhabitats within an individual home range appears to be characteristic of potoroids in temperate environments. Such mosaics may result from topographic or edaphic variation, or from sera1 successional stages in vegetation following disturbance. Of the other small mammals, the bush rat, Rattus fuscipes, and the brown antechinus, Antechinus stuartii, favoured floristic groups that provided dense low cover. Captures of the swamp rat, Rattus lutreolus, were clumped, and centred on several sites along the forest edge on impeded drainage where potential foods were common. The long-nosed bandicoot, Perameles nasuta, and the southern brown bandicoot, Isoodon obesulus, were uncommon and clear microhabitat preferences were not displayed. The house mouse, Mus musculus, was of transient occurrence, mostly during autumn, and no obvious habitat preference was apparent. The quality and availability of microhabitats in remnant vegetation, together with landscape structure, are important in ensuring the persistence and conservation of small mammals in fragmented landscapes.
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Griffiths, Tom. "How many trees make a forest? Cultural debates about vegetation change in Australia." Australian Journal of Botany 50, no. 4 (2002): 375. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/bt01046.
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Environmental history, as it has emerged in recent years, is most distinctive in the way it illustrates a serious engagement between the disciplines of ecology and history. This article begins with an exploration of the lineage and promise of environmental history, particularly in the Australian setting. It then analyses a number of the cultural debates about vegetation change in Australia—about clearing, open landscapes, scrub encroachment and burning practices—and draws attention to the way that morals, politics and aesthetics shaped environmental perception and still do. Clearing was the dominant discourse in the history of landscape change and a legislative requirement for secure settlement. At the same time, criticism of clearing and its effects represented an early conservationist sensibility, but the heroic pioneering labour of clearing, the political imperatives associated with it and the escalating ecological legacy it generated, have sometimes made us forget how open was much of the Australian landscape when Europeans first arrived. The morality of clearing—the arguments for and against—focused the minds of settlers on the trees and the loss of them, while the aesthetics of pastoralism attracted their eyes to the grasslands and made them rejoice in the curious legacy of 'open' landscapes. In the early nineteenth century, the most common usage of the word 'forest' was to describe land fit to graze: 'according to the local distinction, the grass is the discriminating character [of forest land] and not the Trees'. At the same time, pastoralists were unwilling to recognise the role of Aboriginal people in creating such open landscapes and this reticence to acknowledge the Aboriginality of the pastoral economy persists today. This in turn affected the way settlers perceived the new forests that appeared after European invasion. The fate of the vegetation Europeans found has understandably been so much the focus of science and history—its removal, replacement, utilisation, modification and conservation—that 'new forests' easily escape scholarly attention; and being new, they seem far less valuable and threatened. They have generally been perceived as a nuisance, as enclosing and encroaching, as 'scrub', as 'woody weeds'. The politics of understanding regrowth are related not only to the issues of clearing and density, but especially to the culture of burning in Aboriginal and settler society and its implications for management and biodiversity. If the coming together of ecology and history best defines the new 'environmental history', then the most illuminating confluences are those where each discipline helps the other to identify what constitutes a unique 'event', both ecologically and historically. The article therefore finishes with examples of events in two landscapes—the long drought of the 1890s in western New South Wales and the Black Friday bushfires of 1939 in the mountain ash forests of Victoria—to illustrate how each emerges as an intriguing artefact of nature and history, a cultural exaggeration of a natural rhythm. Even as we discover the ecological depth of each apparently 'natural' event, we are reminded of its historical specificity.
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Fitzpatrick, R. W., J. W. Cox, B. Munday, and J. F. Bourne. "Development of soil-landscape and vegetation indicators for managing waterlogged and saline catchments." Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 43, no. 3 (2003): 245. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ea00198.
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The objectives of this study were to develop a systematic approach to identify important soil morphological and vegetation field indicators to better target land management in degraded landscapes in a specific region. The authors were able to link the soil-landscape features to the main soil and water processes operating within the landscape. This information was used to develop a set of field indicators (e.g. soil colour) within a user-friendly soil classification key that is linked to land use options to form the basis of a manual. It was shown that information written in this format helped farmers and regional advisers to identify options for remediation of waterlogged and saline areas and to improve planning at property and catchment scales. The authors identified a series of steps to be taken in producing the manual. Steps 1–5 describe the soil layers and construct them in toposequences, which are then used to map soil types in key surrounding areas. Steps 6–9 involve the local community in developing the manual.The paper provides an account of how manuals have been produced for 2 badly degraded areas in southern Australia (Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia; and western Victoria) and promotes the methodologies for other regions. Descriptive soil information is pictorially integrated along toposequences and applied to identify key soil features. Complex scientific processes and terminology are more simply communicated to local groups using coloured cross-sectional diagrams and photographs of soil and vegetation to overcome some of the perceived barriers to adoption of best management practices. We consider the approach should have generic application.
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Williams, Kathryn J. H., Rebecca M. Ford, and Andrea Rawluk. "Values of the public at risk of wildfire and its management." International Journal of Wildland Fire 27, no. 10 (2018): 665. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wf18038.
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Wildfire management agencies increasingly seek to understand what the public values and expects to be protected from wildfire and its management. Recent conceptual development demonstrates the utility of considering values at three levels of abstraction: localised valued entities such as people, places and objects; valued attributes of communities and landscapes; and core values, or ideals that guide in life. We used a large-scale survey (n = 1105) in Victoria, Australia, to test and extend this framework. The results confirm the usefulness of the conceptual framework and demonstrate that values that members of the public consider at risk of wildfire are much more diverse than those typically considered in wildfire risk management. Relationships between values at different levels of abstraction are meaningful and reveal the multiple ways that objects, places and people become valued. The research suggests ways to understand and practically incorporate values of the public in wildfire management.
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Durant, Rebecca, Gary W. Luck, and Alison Matthews. "Nest-box use by arboreal mammals in a peri-urban landscape." Wildlife Research 36, no. 7 (2009): 565. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr09058.
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Context. Nest boxes provide important nesting, denning and shelter sites for many fauna species worldwide, but we know little about the factors that influence the suitability of nest boxes for particular species. Such information is crucial in urban landscapes where natural hollows are scarce. Aims. The aim of this study was to record the use of nest boxes by sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps), squirrel gliders (P. norfolcensis) and other fauna in a peri-urban landscape in northern Victoria and examine factors at multiple spatial scales that may influence nest-box use. Methods. We monitored the use of 102 nest boxes over three seasons in 2006. Attributes that may influence nest-box occupancy were measured at five different spatial scales: (i) landscape; (ii) the habitat beyond 20 m of the nest box; (iii) the habitat within 20 m of the nest box; (iv) the tree that the nest box was located in; and (v) the nest box. Key results. At the landscape scale, topography influenced nest-box occupancy with squirrel gliders using boxes in flat or gully areas, and sugar gliders using boxes in gully, mid-slope or ridge areas. For habitat beyond 20 m of the nest box, sugar gliders were more likely to occupy boxes with a higher density of surrounding nest boxes and a higher density of residential dwellings. Within 20 m of the nest box, boxes occupied by sugar gliders were more likely to occur in areas with a higher density of acacia shrubs and lower density of hollow-bearing trees, whereas the presence of acacia did not influence nest-box use by squirrel gliders. At the scale of the nest-box tree, boxes occupied by sugar gliders were more likely to be on smaller trees (based on height and diameter) and on box (e.g. red box Eucalyptus polyanthemos) species. The only nest-box characteristic to have a strong relationship with occupancy was date of establishment, with longer established boxes more likely to be occupied. Conclusions. Our study demonstrates that various factors influence nest-box use at different scales and nest boxes remain an important conservation and management tool in heavily modified landscapes. Implications. Land managers and groups should be aware that nest boxes may help to alleviate some of the negative impacts of the loss of hollow-bearing trees in low density urban areas, but nest-box use will vary depending on landscape context, habitat factors, box design, and the ecological traits of the target species. Each of these factors must be considered to maximise the conservation benefits of nest-box programs.
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Steinhäuser, Cornelia. "Mountain farmers’ intangible values foster agroecological landscapes: case studies from Sierra Santa Victoria in northwest Argentina and the Ladin Dolomites, northern Italy." Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 44, no. 3 (June 20, 2019): 352–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2019.1624285.
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Watson, Simon J., Rick S. Taylor, Lisa Spence-Bailey, Dale G. Nimmo, Sally Kenny, Luke T. Kelly, Angie Haslem, et al. "The Mallee fire and biodiversity project." Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 124, no. 1 (2012): 38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/rs12038.
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Fire is a widespread disturbance and an important ecological process in semi-arid mallee ecosystems of southern Australia. Understanding the effects of fire on plants and animals is a key challenge for the conservation and management of biodiversity in this ecosystem. Commencing in 2006, the Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project is investigating the effects of fire on a range of taxa (vascular plants, invertebrates, reptiles, birds and mammals), with a focus on the influence of the properties of ‘fire mosaics’ on biota. A ‘whole of landscape’ design was employed, in which the flora and fauna were sampled in 28 study landscapes, each 4 km in diameter (12.5 km2) across a 104, 000 km2 area of the Murray Mallee region of Victoria, SA and NSW. Here, we summarise some key results and outputs from this project to date. These include: detailed maps of fire history and major vegetation types; a method for predicting the age of mallee vegetation; novel information about the distribution of fire age-classes in the region; and changes to vegetation structure and in the occurrence of reptile, bird and mammal species over a century-long post-fire time-frame. We also present an overview of the effects of fire mosaics (extent of particular age classes, diversity of fire age-classes) on the richness of some mallee fauna. A wealth of knowledge has been developed through the Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project that will assist the management of mallee ecosystems in southern Australia for the future.
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McIntosh, Madeline, and Victoria Chillscyzn. "Home with Hope: Green Infrastructure EEE 495: Urban Water Projects." Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement 9, no. 1 (2022): 56–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284317397.
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Urban landscapes have serious impacts on water quality through the disruption of the hydrologic cycle. The Purdue University course, Environmental and Ecological Engineering 49500: Urban Water Projects, seeks to use student-led service-learning projects to improve both water quality and quantity in the Wabash River water-shed. This year, students investigated and implemented strategies to guarantee that previous implementations succeed well into the future. Two students, Victoria Chillscyzn and Madeline McIntosh, were part of a team working with the local nonprofit Home with Hope. Through interviews, a survey, and site visits, the team determined action items to improve the form and function of the installations. A grant was submitted and accepted through Purdue Student Service-Learning Grant Program for Community Service/Service-Learning Projects to fund an additional rain barrel and an edible garden at the nonprofit. Additionally, educational materials and a maintenance schedule were created to bolster care of the site. This course gave the authors the ability to give back to the local community in a meaningful and relevant way.
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Williams, Richard J., Carl-Henrik Wahren, Arn D. Tolsma, Glenn M. Sanecki, Warwick A. Papst, Bronwyn A. Myers, Keith L. McDougall, Dean A. Heinze, and Ken Green. "Large fires in Australian alpine landscapes: their part in the historical fire regime and their impacts on alpine biodiversity." International Journal of Wildland Fire 17, no. 6 (2008): 793. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wf07154.
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The fires of summer 2003 in south-eastern Australia burnt tens of thousands of hectares of treeless alpine landscape. Here, we examine the environmental impact of these fires, using data from the Bogong High Plains area of Victoria, and the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales. Historical and biophysical evidence suggests that in Australian alpine environments, extensive fires occur only in periods of extended regional drought, and when severe local fire weather coincides with multiple ignitions in the surrounding montane forests. Dendrochronological evidence indicates that large fires have occurred approximately every 50–100 years over the past 400 years. Post-fire monitoring of vegetation in grasslands and heathlands indicates that most alpine species regenerate rapidly after fire, with >90% of species present 1 year after fire. Some keystone species in some plant communities, however, had not regenerated after 3 years. The responses of alpine fauna to the 2003 fires were variable. The core habitat (closed heathland) of several vulnerable small mammals was extensively burnt. Some mammals experienced substantial falls in populations, others experienced substantial increases. Unburnt patches of vegetation are critical to faunal recovery from fire. There was, however, no evidence of local extinction. We conclude that infrequent extensive fires are a feature of alpine Australia. For both the flora and fauna, there is no quantitative evidence that the 2003 fires were an ecological disaster, and we conclude that the flora and fauna of alpine Australia are highly resilient to infrequent, large, intense fires.
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Welshman, Rebecca. "Imagining the Ancient Britons: Victorian Adventures in Wye-Land." Victoriographies 2, no. 1 (May 2012): 31–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/vic.2012.0058.
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Depicted in the mid to late nineteenth-century periodical press as wild, remote, and ‘intensely national’, Wales was perceived as a place of quiet mystery, geographically and socially distinct from the industrialisation of Victorian England. The borderland territory of the Wye Valley – what the Victorian journalist and historian, Barbara Hutton, called ‘Wye-Land’ – has been inhabited for over 12,000 years and preserves an ancient British identity in its rich archaeological landscapes. Developments in mid Victorian archaeology and anthropology precipitated a rise in the number of prehistoric excavations, which popularised knowledge of how ancient Britons lived and died. Drawing from articles in the late Victorian periodical press, and the activities of the Cardiff Naturalist's Society in the 1870s, which included the study of geology, botany and archaeology, this paper suggests that the observation of natural phenomena in the late nineteenth century was closely associated with the study of past human societies. I identify the changing interpretations of prehistoric sites – from early Victorian notions of barbarous druids, to more informed and sensitive appreciations of ancient British societies, whose sympathetic relation to the landscape fostered imaginative connections between late Victorians and their ancestors. This transition away from perceptions of being wholly distinct from prehistoric activity, shaped late Victorian pastoral journalism and encouraged a more integrated vision of the relationship between past and present human activity in the region.
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Kleemann, S., D. Sandow, M. Stevens, D. J. Schultz, D. A. Taggart, and A. Croxford. "Non-invasive monitoring and reintroduction biology of the brush-tailed rock-wallaby (." Australian Journal of Zoology 69, no. 2 (February 8, 2022): 41–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/zo21009.
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Thirty-nine endangered brush-tailed rock-wallabies (Petrogale penicillata) were reintroduced to Grampians National Park, western Victoria, between 2008 and 2012. Subsequent high mortality, low breeding, and no recruitment were linked to fox predation and physical disturbance during monitoring. From 2014 to 2017, the colony was left undisturbed and monitored only by remote camera. Five adult animals were identified across this period (1 ♂ and 3 ♀s – all tagged; and one untagged female), and an average of 0.7 pouch young were birthed per tagged female per year. In 2019, camera-monitoring and non-invasive genetic monitoring (faecal) were used to identify colony members, genetic diversity, and breeding. Camera monitoring in 2019 identified the same five individuals, whereas genetic monitoring using 12 microsatellites identified eight individuals (two male and six female genotypes). Genetic diversity within the colony was moderate (expected heterozygosity (He) = 0.655, observed heterozygosity (Ho) = 0.854). Leaving the colony undisturbed after 2013 correlated with improved adult survival, increased breeding, and successful recruitment of young to the population. Recommendations for the Grampians colony include continuation of regular camera- and scat monitoring to improve our understanding of the reintroduction biology of P. penicillata and other marsupials in open, unfenced landscapes.
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Webb, J. A., D. Fabel, B. L. Finlayson, M. Ellaway, Li Shu, and H. P. Spiertz. "Denudation chronology from cave and river terrace levels: the case of the Buchan Karst, southeastern Australia." Geological Magazine 129, no. 3 (May 1992): 307–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756800019245.
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AbstractDetailed mapping of surface and underground karst features at Buchan, in eastern Victoria, has shown that the three river terraces along the Buchan River can be correlated with three levels of epiphreatic development in the nearby caves. Each level represents a stillstand in the denudational history of the area. Uranium series dating of speleothems and palaeomagnetic studies of cave sediments indicate that all three stilistands are more than 730 ka old. The periods of incision separating the stillstands were probably the result of active tectonic uplift. This contrasts with some northern parts of the Southeastern Highlands, which have been stable since the Eocene. The overall amount of incision and uplift at Buchan is small, indicating that the majority of scarp retreat in this section of the highlands must have occurred earlier. The denudation history of the Buchan area over the last 730 ka has seen only 2–3 m of incision, despite the major climatic and sea-level changes that have occurred in that time. Whereas most karst landscapes in the Northern Hemisphere have been extensively modified during the late Pleistocene, the Buchan karst was little affected, and its geomorphology has an older origin.
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Keely, Claire C., Joshua M. Hale, Geoffrey W. Heard, Kirsten M. Parris, Joanna Sumner, Andrew J. Hamer, and Jane Melville. "Genetic structure and diversity of the endangered growling grass frog in a rapidly urbanizing region." Royal Society Open Science 2, no. 8 (August 2015): 140255. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.140255.
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Two pervasive and fundamental impacts of urbanization are the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats. From a genetic perspective, these impacts manifest as reduced genetic diversity and ultimately reduced genetic viability. The growling grass frog ( Litoria raniformis ) is listed as vulnerable to extinction in Australia, and endangered in the state of Victoria. Remaining populations of this species in and around the city of Melbourne are threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation due to urban expansion. We used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and microsatellites to study the genetic structure and diversity of L. raniformis across Melbourne's urban fringe, and also screened four nuclear gene regions (POMC, RAG-1, Rhod and CRYBA1). The mtDNA and nuclear DNA sequences revealed low levels of genetic diversity throughout remnant populations of L. raniformis . However, one of the four regions studied, Cardinia, exhibited relatively high genetic diversity and several unique haplotypes, suggesting this region should be recognized as a separate Management Unit. We discuss the implications of these results for the conservation of L. raniformis in urbanizing landscapes, particularly the potential risks and benefits of translocation, which remains a contentious management approach for this species.
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Lester, Rebecca E., Wendy Wright, and Michelle Jones-Lennon. "Does adding wood to agricultural streams enhance biodiversity? An experimental approach." Marine and Freshwater Research 58, no. 8 (2007): 687. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf06198.
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Riparian clearing and the removal of wood from channels have affected many streams in agricultural landscapes. As a result, these streams often have depauperate in-stream wood loads, and therefore decreased habitat complexity and lower levels of in-stream biodiversity. The introduction of wood was investigated as a possible rehabilitation technique for agricultural streams. Wood was re-introduced to eight streams in two separate high-rainfall, intensively grazed regions of Victoria, Australia and the effect on aquatic macroinvertebrate communities was measured. The addition of wood increased overall family richness and the richness of most functional feeding groups occupying edge and benthic habitats within the stream. Wood addition led to less overlap between benthic and edge macroinvertebrate communities, suggesting increased habitat heterogeneity within the stream ecosystem. Of all sampled habitats, wood supported the greatest density of families and was colonised by all functional feeding groups. Wood habitats also had the highest overall richness and supported the most taxa that were sensitive to disturbance. These findings suggest that re-introducing wood to agricultural streams is an appropriate rehabilitation technique where those streams are affected by reduced habitat complexity. Additional work is needed to confirm these findings over larger spatial and temporal scales.
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Michael, Damian R., Ian D. Lunt, and Wayne A. Robinson. "Enhancing fauna habitat in grazed native grasslands and woodlands: use of artificially placed log refuges by fauna." Wildlife Research 31, no. 1 (2004): 65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wr02106.
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To assess whether faunal habitat can be enhanced by using artificial refuges, and whether different species preferentially use refuges with differing structural characteristics, we monitored faunal usage of artificially placed log refuges in grazed semi-arid grasslands and woodlands in Terrick Terrick National Park in Victoria. In total, 1131 log refuges were placed at 91 sites across major vegetation types in the reserve. The effect of refuge age was assessed by comparing faunal usage between new refuges and 271 old refuges that had lain in situ for more than 15 years. Refuges were surveyed for fauna monthly between June 2000 and January 2001. Different species preferred refuges with different characteristics. Overall terrestrial fauna, and three native species (Diplodactylus tessellatus, Morethia boulengeri and Suta suta) in particular, were significantly more abundant beneath old refuges, whereas the introduced Mus musculus was significantly more abundant beneath new refuges. Five species (Crinia signifera, Morethia boulengeri, Menetia greyii, Sminthopsis crassicaudata and Suta suta) were significantly more abundant beneath Eucalyptus logs that were large, wide, partially decayed, contained many holes and/or covered many subterranean invertebrate holes. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of installing log refuges in grassy landscapes as a survey method for vertebrate fauna and as a potential habitat-restoration technique to help conserve grassland fauna.
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Trapeznikova, O. N., and N. I. Tormosova. "Historical and geoenvironmental analysis of the development of the Russian North within karst areas (by the example of Kargopol’ Region)." Геоэкология. Инженерная геология. Гидрогеология. Геокриология, no. 3 (June 24, 2019): 52–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s0869-78092019352-62.
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The paper deals with the history of agrarian development of the East European plain in the frame of the geoenvironment concept of agricultural landscapes, taking Kargopol’ region as an example. A large agricultural landscape unique for the middle taiga zone was formed there no later than in the twelve century. We have analyzed the natural environment of the Kargopol’ region and its influence on the agrarian development and the rural settlement pattern. We paid particular attention to the karst, which was widespread in the area and its relation with agricultural landscapes. We made mathematical modelling of both elementary agricultural landscape spatial pattern and the corresponding rural settlement pattern. A feature of the proposed modeling is its emphasis on the relationship between the natural landscape and agricultural landscape. The mathematical morphology of landscape (method proposed by A. Victorov) and, in particular, the karst system model is the base of modeling. This model is first used for the analysis of cultural (anthropogenic) rather than natural landscapes.
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Fensham, R. J., and R. J. Fairfax. "Assessing woody vegetation cover change in north-west Australian savanna using aerial photography." International Journal of Wildland Fire 12, no. 4 (2003): 359. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wf03022.
Full textAbstract:
Models to calibrate tree and shrub cover assessed from aerial photography with field measurements were developed for a range of vegetation types in north-western Australia. The models verify previous studies indicating that woody cover can be successfully determined from aerial photography. The calibration models were applied to estimates of woody vegetation cover determined for 279 randomly located sample areas in the Ord–Victoria Rivers region using aerial photography from 1948 to 1950 and 1988 to 1997. Overstorey cover increased from a regional average of 11.5% to 13.5% and understorey cover increased from 1.3% to 2.0%. Downs, Limestone Hills and Alluvia land-types showed the most substantial increases in overstorey cover while overstorey cover in the Limestone plains land-type decreased. Relatively open structured vegetation is most susceptible to thickening. Rainfall records reveal an extreme multi-year rainfall deficit in the study area in the 1930s and relatively wet times in the 1970s and 1980s. Interpretation of a limited set of aerial photographs taken between 1964 and 1972 suggests that most of the increases in cover have occurred since this time. The study highlights the possibility that the average trend of vegetation thickening represents recovery during the relatively wet times after the 1970s. There was no relationship between structural change and a grazing intensity surrogate (distance of sample points to stock watering-points). However, the causes of structural change are undoubtedly multi-factored and the relative contributions of climate, fire and grazing vary for different landscapes and tree species.
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Fairfax, R. J., and R. J. Fensham. "Corrigendum to: Assessing woody vegetation cover change in north-west Australian savanna using aerial photography." International Journal of Wildland Fire 13, no. 1 (2004): 131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/wf03022_co.
Full textAbstract:
Models to calibrate tree and shrub cover assessed from aerial photography with field measurements were developed for a range of vegetation types in north-western Australia. The models verify previous studies indicating that woody cover can be successfully determined from aerial photography. The calibration models were applied to estimates of woody vegetation cover determined for 279 randomly located sample areas in the Ord–Victoria Rivers region using aerial photography from 1948 to 1950 and 1988 to 1997. Overstorey cover increased from a regional average of 11.5% to 13.5% and understorey cover increased from 1.3% to 2.0%. Downs, Limestone Hills and Alluvia land-types showed the most substantial increases in overstorey cover while overstorey cover in the Limestone plains land-type decreased. Relatively open structured vegetation is most susceptible to thickening. Rainfall records reveal an extreme multi-year rainfall deficit in the study area in the 1930s and relatively wet times in the 1970s and 1980s. Interpretation of a limited set of aerial photographs taken between 1964 and 1972 suggests that most of the increases in cover have occurred since this time. The study highlights the possibility that the average trend of vegetation thickening represents recovery during the relatively wet times after the 1970s. There was no relationship between structural change and a grazing intensity surrogate (distance of sample points to stock watering-points). However, the causes of structural change are undoubtedly multi-factored and the relative contributions of climate, fire and grazing vary for different landscapes and tree species.
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Peace, Walter G. "Landscapes of Victorian Hamilton." Urban History Review 18, no. 1 (1989): 75. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1017826ar.
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Gammage, Bill. "Victorian landscapes in 1788." Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 31, no. 2 (June 2011): 83–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2011.556367.
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