In 2012, the Midlands Conservation Project emerged as a new and novel way to conserve the highly threatened native communities and species in the Tasmanian Midlands. This collaboration between Bush Heritage Australia (BHA), Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC) and the Midlands farming community currently protects 4,500 ha of land including the critically endangered native grasslands. The approach used to select areas for inclusion is highly selective and targeted at the most at risk but more resilient parts of the landscape. Detailed and regular monitoring of this land enables BHA and TLC to monitor the condition of natural values over time and provide feedback to the farmers on ways to improve their management of the land. Much of the protected land is still actively managed on these 13 farms with sheep and some cattle able to graze the grassy woodlands and grasslands. Funding is provided to the farmers if they meet (or exceed) the performance indicators outlined in each stewardship agreement. Non-compliance can lead to an agreement being terminated and the funding invested elsewhere. Long-term ecological monitoring is the cornerstone of these agreements. An adaptive management approach based on this ecological information will help ensure that these lands are well managed into the future.

The effects of historical climate shifts on intraspecific genetic diversity have been well documented. However, we know less about the effects of short-term and localised variations in weather on genetic diversity, despite that fact that weather can cause rapid changes in geographic range and population size. Here, we use dynamic species distribution models (SDMs) and genetic analysis to reveal the relationship between weather and genetic diversity in a marsupial, the eastern bettong (Bettongia gaimardi), in Tasmania. Genetic diversity was higher in parts of Tasmania where our SDM predicted high suitability on average over the period 1950–2010, based on short-term weather variables. In areas with lower average weather suitability, genetic diversity was lower, probably due to bottlenecks and recolonisation events during range fluctuation. The spatial variation in genetic diversity was better predicted by SDMs based on monthly weather variables rather than long-term climate averages. Our results illustrate the importance of weather in driving population dynamics and species distributions on decadal time-scales, which in turn has ramifications for the maintenance of genetic diversity. To forecast biological impacts of future climate change, it will be essential to model the links between changing weather patterns, species distributions and genetic diversity.

Habitat restoration in Australia has commonly been undertaken at a local scale on individual farms or by local catchment groups. However, if we are to have real effect on regional biodiversity in a changing climate, we have to plan at a landscape scale. Therefore, conservation challenges of the 21st century require restoration agencies such as Greening Australia to work to reconnect fragmented landscapes to build functioning metacommunities – that is we need to buffer and connect small remnant woodland patches together so they function as one large patch, giving the plants and animals that live in them sufficient habitat extent and quality to forage, breed and disperse.

Greening Australia has been working with landholders, UTAS, Bush Heritage and Tasmanian Land Conservancy in the Tasmanian Midlands, one of Australia’s 15 biodiversity hotspots. Here, we integrate the learnings from 10 years of on-ground restoration work and scientific partnerships with UTAS to make recommendations for future restoration projects. In particular, we discuss how outcomes from four years of animal research have influenced the way we design our restoration; from species choice and ways to enhance habitat structure, patch shape and size within woodland remnants, to the types of cover needed for animals passing between remnant patches.

For ecological restoration to aid in the conservation of threatened animals, it must be underpinned by knowledge of how local-scale, short-term ecological processes, such as individual movement decisions, influence broader-scale patterns of species occurrence and genetic connectivity. To provide guidance for restoration programs in the Tasmanian Midlands, we have investigated the ecological processes influencing movement behaviour in two mammals, the eastern bettong (Bettongia gaimardi) and the spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus), at different spatiotemporal scales. We tested whether data about individual habitat use can be used to create landscape resistance models that predict broad-scale genetic connectivity. We predicted that habitat use at the medium-term, home-range level will better explain genetic structure than habitat use during fine-scale movements.

Using GPS tracking data from 10 quolls and 25 bettongs, we created step-selection functions testing the relationship between fine-scale movement choices and habitat features, and resource selection functions testing the use of different landscape features within an individual’s home range over the entire tracking period. During fine-scale travelling movements, both species selected for dense vegetation, and bettongs also avoided edges. At the home range scale, quolls avoided open habitat while moving, while bettongs had mixed responses to open areas. We then derived landscape resistance surfaces for the Midlands from the fine- and medium-scale selection functions, and tested their ability to predict region-wide genetic structure among 32 quolls and 105 bettongs. The habitat suitability and landscape resistance maps generated by this study can be used to identify key areas for habitat restoration in the Midlands.

Over 580 distinct camera trap events of vertebrates were recorded on small streams and adjacent riparian areas across 15 sub-catchments in the Midlands during autumn – spring 2018. These included semi-aquatic mammals, native herbivores (such as wombats and pademelons) pacific black ducks, black rats, livestock (such as sheep and cows), and insectivorous birds. The key result was that it was local rather than catchment-scale variables that wer the strongest factors influencing the occupancy by the most common species using these streams, Pacific black ducks and invasive black rats. By contrast, the abundance of emerging invertebrates near the stream was influenced by the degree of natural condition of the surrounding landscape and that this influences the local activity of insectivorous vertebrates such as birds and bats. Farm dams provide important habitat for semi-aquatic and riparian vertebrates. Invasive species, including the black rats and the native noisy miner, were more likely to be found at sites with greater anthropogenic modifications to the landscape. This study did not produce enough data from cryptic semi-aquatic mammals for analysis, but eDNA procedures are now being deployed to determine their occupancy of these highly modified ecosystems.

Populations of many birds are declining in agricultural landscapes around the world. Mechanisms underlying these declines can be better understood by exploring population change in groups of species that share life-history traits. We investigated how land-use change has affected birds of the Tasmanian Midlands. We surveyed birds at 72 sites, some of which were previously surveyed 20 years ago, and used new statistical techniques to test relationships of abundance and community composition to landscape and patch-level environmental characteristics. Woodland cover, elevation, and densities of a hyperaggressive honeyeater, the noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala), had the strongest effects on bird communities. Analysis of change suggests an increase in large-bodied birds with a granivorous or carnivorous diet but declines in some arboreal foragers and nectarivores. Common species, including Tasmanian endemics, were among those with the largest proportional declines. We also tested the hypothesis that interference competition with noisy miners could result in chronic stress among cohabiting bird species, with the potential to force individuals to abandon miner-dominated habitat. Heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratios were 1.8 × higher in superb fairy-wrens from remnant woodlands occupied by miners than in reserves without miners, suggesting higher levels of physiological stress. Further study is necessary, however, to separate the relative importance of noisy miner aggression from other potential stressors in small patches of degraded woodland. We encourage a continued monitoring effort to help inform ecological restoration for birds in the Midlands and redress the poor representation of Tasmanian species in Australian bird data.

Current and projected climate change will have significant implications on the long-term success of environmental plantings in highly modified rural landscapes such as the Tasmanian Midlands. Many local species are predicted to be maladapted under future climate projections and the paradigm that ‘local-is-best’ is being challenged and provenance translocation increasingly advocated. Therefore, the choice of species and where to collect seed within a species range will be critical decisions in building climate resilience into long-term environmental plantings. Various seed sourcing strategies have been proposed that capitalize on inherent genetic diversity and adaptive capacity within native species. Testing of these strategies before wide deployment by practitioners is important. We here present early-age results from multiple eucalypt provenance trials embedded within Greening Australia’s large-scale restoration plantings across the Tasmanian Midlands. These trials are linked to studies of provenance differentiation in functional traits and molecular markers. Specifically, we show that: (i) seed regionally local to Tasmania often preforms best but non-local provenance translocated from the mainland can establish; (ii) within Tasmania there is a broad transfer response, but the relative performance of local provenances appears context dependent and may vary with focal species and sites; (iii) within a site the relative performance of species and provenances appears unaffected by co-planted species; and (iv) provenance transfers may alter the dependent arthropod and fungal communities. These early findings are refining our species and provenance choice strategies and helping to guide future restoration projects.

Quantifying the success of restoration plantings in achieving the desired ecosystem functions and services is challenging. Forest structural complexity and biomass accumulation are key measures used to monitor success in terms of the availability of animal habitat and carbon sequestration, respectively. Monitoring their development through time using traditional field measurements is costly and often impractical given the landscape-scale at which ecological restoration is being undertaken.
We have been exploring the application of remote sensing technologies to capture the development of key structural attributes of restoration plantings in the dry Midlands region of Tasmania. We here report the use of the hand-held laser scanner (ZEB1) to measure annual changes in structural attributes in a mixed eucalypt planting from seven to nine years after planting. Using very dense point clouds we derived tree-level estimates of multiple structural attributes including above-ground biomass, tree height, stem diameter, crown dimensions and vegetation layering. Most attributes were ground-truthed using traditional field measurements.
We detected annual increases in most derived attributes, with canopies becoming increasingly interconnected. However, the average annual increment varied spatially, as well as between species and years. Growth was markedly reduced in the second season studied, potentially due to lower precipitation.
We show the potential for remote sensing technology to monitor fine-scale temporal changes in forest structural attributes as well as provide base-line measures from which the restoration trajectory towards a reference or desire state can be assessed.

One way of approaching the challenge of sustainable production in agriculture is to expand the use of ecosystem services to increase productivity and in doing so reduce or replace external inputs. Agroforestry systems (farming systems with integrated trees and/or shrubs) have received some recognition, notably from the FAO, for their capacity to enhance the provision of a range of beneficial ecosystem services. However, few studies have attempted to quantify these services or to account for trade-offs and additive interactions between them.
Natural capital accounting (NCA) provides information on stocks and flows of natural resources and services in physical or monetary terms. This may provide a useful mechanism for assessing the economic value of the trees and shrubs that comprise agroforestry plantings, based on the ecosystem service inflows that they provide to agriculture. NCA has been widely applied at national and regional scales. However, this project explores the challenges, limitations, and potential opportunities associated with applying NCA to agroforestry at the farm scale - using field experiments based in the Tasmanian midlands.
Our findings suggest that NCA may indeed be a useful framework for quantifying and comparing the value of various types of agroforestry plantings, based on the ecosystem services that they provide at the farm scale. Use of NCA as a tool in this context presents opportunities to better understand and communicate the value of agroforestry plantings, and to develop new incentives for private investment in agroforestry and restoration.

The greatest threat to native pollinator diversity in Australian landscapes may be the loss of resources supplied by native vegetation. The Tasmanian Midlands, one of the first regions modified for agriculture in Australia, has had an estimated 83 % of its original vegetation removed. The rollout of irrigation infrastructure in this region is anticipated to stimulate a rapid expansion in cropping, furthering habitat fragmentation and creating a demand for pollination services that cannot be fulfilled by managed honeybees. Prompted by global honeybee declines, compelling scientific literature highlights the contribution of native insects towards crop pollination and the importance of native vegetation in sustaining pollinating insects. However only a handful of studies consider Australian insects in a cropping context and their basic ecology remains incomplete.

Integrating these narratives, this research considers whether the ecological relationship between native pollinators, remnant vegetation and crops can be harnessed to drive the revegetation of cropping land. Thereby reconnecting landscape biodiversity, whilst safeguarding commercial agriculture. Addressing an urgent need for baseline data, this project surveys common insect pollinators across the Tasmanian Midlands, examines 19 major native plant species sustaining these and investigates native insect overlap into carrot seed crops. Preliminary findings provide an overview of patterns in insect attraction towards native and crop flowers, determined from the comparison of floral scent profiles and pollen fingerprints against visual observations of insect visitation. Further conclusions include a regional flowering calendar and recommendations of preliminary flowering sequences suitable for revegetation.

They say to never work with animals or kids, well this first-year architectural design program deliberately works with both in an intensive live project. The project has occurred over the past three consecutive years, resulting in sculptural Species Hotels that have begun to be inhabited. Each year has involved at least 60 first year architecture and design students, a primary school class (grade 1 and 2s), restorative ecologists, PhD researchers (endangered species) as well as keen design staff. This paper will explore the rationale for multiple partnerships across generations, and how these different partners have enabled each other to better communicate, imagine and potentially create better futures. In addition, how the Species Hotel works as the vehicle for exchange and transformative learning for each group.

The presentation will outline the methods used to allow such productive partnerships to emerge and analyse student reflections. All partners begin by meeting together at the local Community Hall. Both groups of students are involved in unpacking the brief for endangered animals by working with experts and researchers, responding to site and initial conceptual designs through model making. The benefits gained from involving early primary school children in these activities are two-fold: they are keen and unashamedly ask questions from experts and researchers, where typically first year university students are reluctant to. In addition, the experts/ researchers are required to clearly communicate with a young audience but convey the complexities to the architecture and design students, meaning they are honing their skills to communicate.