Biodiversity and Environmental Change
Monitoring, Challenges and DirectionEdited by:
Demonstrates the value and integration of existing national long-term ecological research in Australia for monitoring environmental change and biodiversity.
This data-rich book demonstrates the value of existing national long-term ecological research in Australia for monitoring environmental change and biodiversity. + Full description
Long-term ecological data are critical for informing trends in biodiversity and environmental change. The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) is a major initiative of the Australian Government and one of its key areas of investment is to provide funding for a network of long-term ecological research plots around Australia (LTERN).
LTERN researchers and other authors in this book have maintained monitoring sites, often for one or more decades, in an array of different ecosystems across the Australian continent – ranging from tropical rainforests, wet eucalypt forests and alpine regions through to rangelands and deserts. This book highlights some of the temporal changes in the environment that have occurred in the various systems in which dedicated field-based ecologists have worked. Many important trends and changes are documented and they often provide new insights that were previously poorly understood or unknown. These data are precisely the kinds of data so desperately needed to better quantify the temporal trajectories in the environment in Australia.
By presenting trend patterns (and often also the associated data) the authors aim to catalyse governments and other organisations to better recognise the importance of long-term data collection and monitoring as a fundamental part of ecologically-effective and cost-effective management of the environment and biodiversity.- Short description
"This exceptional book shows how the scientific and environmental management community needs to respond. In revealing the magnificence of Australia’s natural heritage, in quantifying how it is changing, and by untangling the complex of anthropogenic and natural drivers, it shows what is at risk, and provides the understanding necessary for effective action."
Matt McGlone, Frontiers of Biogeography, 2014, vol.6, no.3
"This book is arguably the most significant, up-to-date and comprehensive review ever undertaken on the state of the environment"
Bruce Lindenmayer, Canberra Bird Notes, 39 (3), December 2014, pp. 208-209
DetailsHardback | February 2014 | $120.00
ISBN: 9780643108561 | 624 pages | 260 x 200 mm
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Colour photographs, Line Art
ePDF | February 2014
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
- High-quality empirical data
- Gathers together time series trends for responses of biodiversity and environmental change
- Written by eminent members of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN)
Contents1 General overview
2 The value of long-term research and how to design effective ecological research and monitoring
3 Our capacity to tell an Australian ecological story
4 The cultural imperative: broadening the vision of longterm ecological monitoring to enhance environmental policy and management outcomes
5 Tropical rainforests of Eastern Australia
6 Alpine ecosystems
8 Temperate eucalypt woodlands
9 North Australian tropical savannas: the Three Parks Savanna Fire-Effects Plot Network
10 Desert complex environments
11 Chenopod and acacia shrublands
12 Tussock grasslands
13 Tall eucalypt forests