North-East Eyre Peninsula Conservation Reserves Biodiversity Asset Assessment
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Department for Environment and Heritage North-east Eyre Peninsula Conservation Reserves Biodiversity Asset Assessment NORTH-EAST EYRE PENINSULA CONSERVATION RESERVES BIODIVERSITY ASSET ASSESSMENT 2009 R. Brandle, J. McDonald, K. Graham and N. Haby Science Resource Centre Information, Science and Technology Directorate Department for Environment and Heritage 2009 North-east Eyre Peninsula Conservation Reserves Biodiversity Asset Assessment Part 1: Regional Context CONTENTS CONTENTS ....................................................................................................................................................................... i TABLES ............................................................................................................................................................................ ii FIGURES ......................................................................................................................................................................... iii APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................................................. iii KEY POINTS ................................................................................................................................................................... iv PART 1: REGIONAL CONTEXT .................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Climate........................................................................................................................................................................ 2 Soils ............................................................................................................................................................................ 2 Vegetation Communities ............................................................................................................................................ 2 Biodiversity Assets ......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Vegetation Communities ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Flora Summaries (refer to Appendix 1 for species details) ................................................................................... 8 Threatened Flora ......................................................................................................................................................... 9 Introduced Flora (Weeds) ......................................................................................................................................... 10 Fauna Summaries ...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Threatened Fauna ...................................................................................................................................................... 19 Introduced Fauna (Ferals) ......................................................................................................................................... 20 PART 2: SHIRROCOE BLOCK BIOLOGICAL SURVEY ...................................................................................... 22 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 22 Methods ........................................................................................................................................................................ 23 Site Selection ............................................................................................................................................................ 23 Timing ...................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Vegetation ................................................................................................................................................................. 23 Floristic Vegetation Mapping ................................................................................................................................... 23 Fauna ........................................................................................................................................................................ 23 Results .......................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Physical Site Descriptions ........................................................................................................................................ 25 Vegetation Survey .................................................................................................................................................... 26 Floristic Vegetation Mapping ................................................................................................................................... 29 Birds ......................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Mammals .................................................................................................................................................................. 33 Reptiles ..................................................................................................................................................................... 34 PART 3: ASSESSMENT OF DISTURBANCE AND THREATS TO SHIRROCOE BLOCK .............................. 36 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 36 Known Disturbance History ..................................................................................................................................... 36 Ecosystem Condition ................................................................................................................................................ 36 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................................. 37 Additional Habitat Quality Data ............................................................................................................................... 37 Results .......................................................................................................................................................................... 39 General ...................................................................................................................................................................... 39 Specific Results ........................................................................................................................................................ 39 Summary ....................................................................................................................................................................... 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................................... 48 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................................................. 49 i North-east Eyre Peninsula Conservation Reserves Biodiversity Asset Assessment Part 1: Regional Context TABLES PART 1 Table 1.1. IBRA subregions and Environmental Associations spanning the Shirrocoe Pastoral Lease. Table 1.2. Source of data used for desktop assessment of biological values of Shirrocoe Pastoral Lease. Table 1.3. Vegetation mapping groups present within the Shirrocoe Pastoral Lease. Table 1.4. SA Department for Environment reserves of north-east Eyre Peninsula. Table 1.4. Descriptions for vegetation communities as mapped across the north-eastern Eyre Peninsula reserves. The areas mapped in reserves indicates the area of polygons where the SA VEG ID 1 code was considered dominant. Table 1.5. SA vegetation mapping group code and the approx. area (km2) within the reserves of north-eastern Eyre Peninsula. Table 1.6. Number of plant species recorded within each reserve, the number records, percentage of those records collected at survey sites and the number of survey sites in each reserve. Table 1.7. Plant species with Australian and South Australian conservation ratings. AUS: EN=Endangered, VU=Vulnerable, SA: E=Endangered, V=Vulnerable, R=Rare. Table 1.8. Summary of vertebrate species for each taxonomic Class in NE Eyre Peninsula and conservation reserves shown in Figure 1.1. Table 1.9. Existing survey effort in the reserves surrounding Shirrocoe. Reserves from Figure 1.1 not listed have had no biological survey