Biodiversity in Australia's National Reserve System - Part ... - BushBlitz

Executive Summary
We compared the location of fauna records (record sites) with the protected area network of
Australia for the following diverse groups: anurans (frogs), mammals, birds, reptiles,
mygalomorphae (trap-door) spiders, sparassidae (huntsman) spiders, lepidoptera (butterflies),
land snails, dytiscidae (water beetles) and odonata (dragonflies and damselflies). We
determined how many record sites fell within protected areas (PAs) and assessed whether the
available distribution of record sites matched that which could be expected by random
chance. We also determined the number of PAs in which each species was located and how
many were found in larger (>1000 ha) PAs. This latter category is considered to be of
importance as larger PAs are thought to provide significantly better long-term protection to
species. They represent larger areas of more diverse habitats that can support larger
populations that are more likely to survive local catastrophic events and so survive in relative
perpetuity. Species in smaller reserves will be present in smaller populations and so are
considered more likely to suffer major decline due to individual “local” events that affect
habitats (eg, fire, disease) leaving them prone to extinction. They also are likely to have less
genetic diversity and so have less long-term ability to adapt to changing conditions within
their PA and region.
The 2006 Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) lists 8780
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria “reserves” that protect
768,826,956 hectares (11.6%) of mainland Australia (forming Australia’s National Reserve
System (NRS)). We obtained data for 6590 species, but 15 vertebrate species were
considered extinct and removed from analysis. Also, 30 or fewer records were available for
302 vertebrate species (15.9%) and ten or fewer records for 3021 invertebrate species
(64.4%). These species were not included in the further detailed analysis, but it was notable
that vertebrate species in this category are usually located in northern and inland Australia
and represent only small proportions of the total vertebrate species. Hence, the vertebrates
are generally well understood in their distributions and habitat requirements. For the
invertebrates, the smaller number of records to enter this category still resulted in more
species being listed as “poorly known”. For nearly all of these species, their ranges and
habitat requirements are essentially unknown and it is reasonable to state that we currently
have no knowledge of their conservation status. These species come from all over Australia,
although, again, there is a tendency for species in this category to come from the less
populated regions of Australia.
The data for the 1550 remaining extant vertebrate species and 1669 invertebrate species is
summarised in Tables 1 and 2. These species have an average of 20.46% of their record
sites within PAs, far above the 11.6% of land protected by PAs across Australia, indicating
that records are much more likely to come from PAs than would be expected by chance. A
total of 649 species have >45% of record sites in PAs and 441 species