Conserving Biodiversity in Brigalow Regrowth - School of ...

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Scales of Habitat Management Managing brigalow woodland for a diverse range of fauna requires thinking about habitat use at multiple scales. For example, some animals spend most of their lives in a small area of a hectare or less, but others need to move over distances of hundreds of kilometres. A step back: the whole patch It is not just what happens in the stand of brigalow that is important to the fauna that live there. A patch is an area of woodland or forest that has more or less uniform characteristics and is bounded by a land-cover type that is very different. For example, the edge of a brigalow woodland patch might be where it meets a paddock of wheat. Up close: the Forest Stand Just like people, animals need to have a place they call home, a place that provides them with shelter from the elements and from other animals that might hunt them, a place to sleep and raise their young. A home may be as simple as a cavity under a log, the crevice under some peeling bark on a brigalow tree, or the dense foliage of a mistletoe plant. Traditionally used by forest harvesters, the term ‘stand’ refers to a small area within a forest patch. The stand is a useful way to take a close up look at what is found within a patch of brigalow woodland and how the animals that live in the woodland may see things. At this fine scale, consider how many fallen logs are on the ground, how tall the trees are, how close together the trees are and how many shrubs you can see. From the animal’s perspective, a complex or messy woodland is often WILL GOULDING a sign of good habitat. Fallen timber, standing dead trees, shrubs and a thick leaf litter are all signs of good homes for wildlife. Managing brigalow woodland stands for fauna: Good ground cover and a shrubby understorey can be achieved by minimising the impact from grazing animals – by excluding stock for periods of time to allow low plants to recover from browsing and trampling. Many animal homes can be provided by leaving dead trees standing and allowing dead timber to rot where it falls on the ground. Sometimes defining a patch is difficult; there may be no sharp boundary where it joins unmodified pasture. The size and shape of the entire woodland patch are important, as well as the distance between one woodland patch and another. For example, many animals need to move throughout a patch of woodland and perhaps to other patches of woodland to find food. Honeyeaters, like the striped honeyeater, will travel widely within a day to find flowering or fruiting plants (such as mistletoes and eucalypt blossom). Less frequent but longer distance movements are necessary too. Seasonal visitors to the brigalow woodlands include the threatened painted honeyeater that travels widely in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory and returns to the brigalow woodlands to breed during the summer months. Other species like the metallic green Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoo and the raucous channel-billed cuckoo travel all the way from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia to the brigalow woodlands to breed during summer. It’s not just migratory species that need to travel long distances. Many young animals need to leave their family home when they become independent and they need to move considerable distances to find another suitable location that is unoccupied. 12
CONSERVING BIODIVERSITY IN BRIGALOW LANDSCAPES These movements can be much more difficult in agricultural areas. Animals differ in their ability to travel across open country to find other woodland patches and are at greater risk of predation when crossing open country. Some animals can only move within woodland patches, so if the woodland patch they live in is too small, they will perish or be unable to breed. Managing brigalow woodland patches for wildlife: Leaving large patches of woodland on your property will provide habitat for those species that cannot travel across open country. Leaving trees and patches, or even clumps of regrowth, in your paddocks will maintain connections between habitat patches by providing ‘stepping stones’ for the more mobile species. Connecting your shade-lines to one another will help animals that need to visit multiple brigalow woodland patches. Keeping your shade-lines as wide as possible, ideally > 100 m, will make it easier for animals to avoid the edges of woodland and farmland if they need to. MICHIALA BOWEN Taking in the big picture: the landscape Animal populations need to maintain connections with other populations in the landscape to maintain genetic diversity and long-term persistence. In defining the term ‘landscape’, we need to think about individual animals to decide what makes a landscape for them. In general, a landscape is defined as an area of land that is large compared to the scale of movement of the animal and often includes both suitable and less-suitable habitat. A landscape for a tiny burrowing frog can be only a few hundred metres across, while for a honeyeater, the landscape might be kilometres across. In a practical sense, it is best to think of a landscape in terms of the area of land that you manage, i.e., the entire property or multiple neighbouring properties. At this landscape scale, it is important to think about the total amount of woodland compared to areas of production in your area of management, and how well connected it is to other areas of woodland. This doesn’t necessarily mean a physical line of trees – many animals can cross small gaps between patches – but if you are able to encourage woodland regeneration close to areas of existing woodland, this is better than creating an isolated patch. Most importantly, the more woodland cover you have in your landscape, the better it is likely to be for wildlife. Every little bit counts. If you carefully think about how you manage the woodland stands, patches and entire landscape of your property then you are likely to achieve the best you can for a range of animals. Managing your landscape for wildlife: Leaving as much woodland in the landscape as possible will result in more wildlife. Protect woodland edges by avoiding herbicide and pesticide spray drift into woodland patches – this will help to avoid degradation and shrinkage of woodland patches. Good habitat quality at large scales can be achieved by working with neighbours to manage habitat on more than one property. 13
Page 2 and 3: PARTNERS CONTRIBUTORS Associate Pro
Page 4 and 5: Foreword Times change. In 1960 when
Page 6 and 7: Brigalow Landscapes The Brigalow Be
Page 8 and 9: Between the Wars After WWI, develop
Page 10 and 11: threats to brigalow Although the br
Page 14 and 15: How much vegetation? The main reaso
Page 16 and 17: Managing dense Brigalow regrowth: T
Page 18 and 19: Key habitat features What are the m
Page 20 and 21: Iconic species and their habitat WI
Page 22 and 23: limbs and under loose bark on old t
Page 24 and 25: LIST OF VERTEBRATE SPECIES recorded
Page 26 and 27: QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE 1. How much v

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