Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

8 – Monitoring threatened ecosystems and ecological communities^107

(projective foliage cover >20%) since 1988. Ground-based monitoring is more
limited. Several of the most rigorously designed projects belong to Australia’s
Long-term Ecological Research Network. They monitor multiple ecosystem
components across spatially extensive plot networks over long time series,
including environmental covariables and some interactions among components

Box 8.1. Biodiversity monitoring and management in Scottsdale

reserve

Scottsdale is a former grazing and cropping property of 1328 ha on the southern

tablelands of New South Wales, now owned and managed by Bush Heritage

Australia (BHA) as a conservation reserve (http://www.bushheritage.org.au/places-

we-protect/new-south-wales/scottsdale). Two nationally threatened ecological

communities are represented in the reserve (Table 8.2). Key elements of the

protocol for monitoring and managing these TECs include:

• a management plan with specific objectives and actions for conservation of TECs
  (Bush Heritage Australia 2016)


• eight sites established in TECs in 2006 and monitored at 2–3 year intervals using
  standard monitoring protocols (in common with other BHA reserves; Fig. 8.1)


• vegetation structure based on 50 m transects


• plant species composition


• tree health and regeneration/recruitment


• soil surface condition


• bird species composition


• photopoints


• monitoring data entered into a database. Once verified and analysed, the data are
  linked to management plan objectives, performance measures, work plan and
  budget in conservation planning software (https://www.miradi.org/)


• 5-yearly reviews of ecological outcomes based on simple statistical appraisals of
  the monitoring data


• management reports and simplified report cards for reserve managers, regional
  managers, ecologists and donors, which review management performance against
  indicators specified in the management plan, scan the data for other relevant
  signals and list recommendations for adjustments to management strategies and
  the reporting framework


• interpretation of incipient trends in relation to both threatening processes and
  environmental covariables, to characterise and accommodate natural temporal
  variation in the system
  Although only one or two management objectives pertain to each TEC, effective
  evaluation of performance requires reporting against multiple components of the
  TEC. The emphasis on multiple biodiversity variables and covariables, rather than
  aggregated condition indices or one factor perceived to be critical, reduces reliance
  on assumptions that trends in one component represent overall changes in the
  community and allows threats to particular ecosystem components to be targeted
  with specific management actions.