Perth Laboratory - Public Seminar Series 2006

Assessing the biodiversity benefits of farmland revegetation in the Western Australian wheatbelt

Dr Patrick Smith
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems
Water for a Healthy Country Flagship

Thursday 7 September at 3.30pm, CSIRO Auditorium

Abstract

Over the past 30 years farmers from the neighbouring Wallatin and O’Brien Creek catchments in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia have collectively planted over 1800ha of woody perennial vegetation on formerly cleared farmland.

While the motives for planting this vegetation have varied (e.g. ground water management, habitat creation, livestock fodder and shelter, aesthetic value) the net result has been an increase in the cover of woody perennial vegetation in the catchments by almost 50% (from 10.9% uncleared remnant native bush to 15.7% now under native perennials). The scale of this revegetation effort has recreated substantial habitat networks, re-integrating dozens of formerly isolated habitat patches.

We have assessed the biodiversity benefits of revegetation within the catchments by:

1. quantifying the likely habitat value of the revegetation patches;
2. surveying the bird, mammal and reptile fauna across the catchments and comparing remnant habitat patches in different landscape contexts (namely ‘isolated’, ‘re-integrated’ and ‘never-isolated’); and
3. comparing bird fauna of patches in the three landscape contexts in 2004/05 with comparable bird survey data from 1997.

The main results for these areas were:

1. that revegetation currently has approximately half the predicted habitat value of native bush but that this is likely to increase as stands age;
2. that birds, mammals and reptiles display different patterns of response to the presence of revegetation in the landscape; and
3. that while bird faunal diversity and abundance across the catchments appears to have declined overall since 1997, areas with significant revegetation have bucked this trend and shown significant improvement.

We conclude that revegetation on the scale demonstrated in the Wallatin and O’Brien catchments can have significant beneficial impacts on native wildlife, particularly where the revegetation is used to re-integrate formerly isolated habitat fragments.

About the speaker

Patrick Smith is an agricultural landscape ecologist who has been working with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems since 2001. His research interests centre on the conservation of native biodiversity in production landscapes, particularly looking for opportunities to integrate conservation and production, and also assessing the value of past conservation-related activities.

He is currently leading or contributing to a number of research projects along these themes in the agricultural zones of both the south east and south west of Australia, and supervises a number of graduate students with interests ranging from the ecosystem services of invertebrates to the assimilation of carbon by farm revegetation.

Dr Smith’s research on the biodiversity benefits of farmland revegetation is part of the Farm Water Futures project, a Water for a Healthy Country Flagship initiative.

Seminar Organiser: Jackie Walsh (08) 9333 6380
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