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Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor Short Range Endemic Invertebrate Survey

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Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor Short Range Endemic Invertebrate Survey OCTOBER 2011 BROCKMAN RESOURCES LIMITED RAIL CORRIDOR SHORT RANGE ENDEMIC INVERTEBRATE SURVEY This page has been left blank intentionally BROCKMAN RESOURCES LIMITED RAIL CORRIDOR SHORT RANGE ENDEMIC INVERTEBRATE SURVEY Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor SRE Survey Document Status Approved for Issue Rev Author Reviewer/s Date Name Distributed To Date A N. Dight L. Roque‐Albelo 15/12/10 L.Roque‐Albelo J. Greive 1 N. Dight M. Davis 20/11/11 L. Roque‐Albelo G. Firth 21/10/11 ecologia Environment (2011). Reproduction of this report in whole or in part by electronic, mechanical or chemical means including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, in any language, is strictly prohibited without the express approval of Brockman Resources Limited and/or ecologia Environment. Restrictions on Use This report has been prepared specifically for Brockman Resources Limited. Neither the report nor its contents may be referred to or quoted in any statement, study, report, application, prospectus, loan, or other agreement document, without the express approval of Brockman Resources and/or ecologia Environment. ecologia Environment 1025 Wellington Street WEST PERTH WA 6005 Phone: 08 9322 1944 Fax: 08 9322 1599 Email: [email protected] October 2011 iii Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor SRE Survey TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................................VIII 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 PROJECT OVERVIEW..................................................................................................................1 1.2 LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK .......................................................................................................1 1.3 SURVEY OBJECTIVES..................................................................................................................2 1.4 SHORT RANGE ENDEMIC FAUNA: A REVIEW ............................................................................4 2 STUDY AREA ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 CLIMATE ....................................................................................................................................7 2.2 BIOGEOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................9 2.3 VEGETATION ...........................................................................................................................11 2.4 LANDSYSTEMS.........................................................................................................................14 3 METHODS ....................................................................................................................... 19 3.1 LITERATURE REVIEW AND DATABASE SEARCHES ...................................................................19 3.2 SURVEY TIMING ......................................................................................................................19 3.3 SITE SELECTION, SURVEY INTENSITY AND ADEQUACY............................................................20 3.4 SAMPLING METHODS..............................................................................................................22 3.5 SRE STATUS .............................................................................................................................24 3.6 DATA ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................24 4 RESULTS.......................................................................................................................... 27 4.1 LITERATURE REVIEW AND DATABASE SEARCHES ...................................................................27 4.2 SURVEY ADEQUACY.................................................................................................................27 4.3 SPECIMENS COLLECTED ..........................................................................................................28 4.4 HABITAT ANALYSIS..................................................................................................................39 5 DISCUSSION.................................................................................................................... 41 6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 43 7 STUDY TEAM................................................................................................................... 45 October 2011 iv Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor SRE Survey 8 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................... 47 TABLES Table 2.1 – Rainfall Preceding the Survey (Newman Airport Records) ....................................................8 Table 2.2 – Shepherd Vegetation Associations Recorded in the Project Area.......................................12 Table 2.3 – Land Systems of the Project Area ........................................................................................15 Table 3.1 – Taxonomic Experts used to Identify Potential SRE Taxa Found During the Survey.............24 Table 4.1 – Wet Pitfall Specimen Collection Summary ..........................................................................31 Table 4.2 – Forage SpecimenCollection Summary .................................................................................32 Table 4.3 – Habitat Analysis of SRE Sites in the Project .........................................................................39 Table 4.4 – Predicted Percentage Impact for Each SRE or Potential SRE Species ..................................39 Table 5.1 – Summary of SRE Specimens Recorded ................................................................................41 FIGURES Figure 1.1 – Location of the Project Area.................................................................................................3 Figure 2.1 – Climatic Summary for Newman Airport (BoM 2011) ...........................................................8 Figure 2.2 – IBRA Subreigons of the Project area...................................................................................10 Figure 2.3 –Vegetation Associations of the Project Area.......................................................................13 Figure 2.4 – Land Systems of the Project Area.......................................................................................17 Figure 3.1 – Location of Survey Sites......................................................................................................21 Figure 3.2 – Wet Pitfall Traps .................................................................................................................22 Figure 3.3 – Example of the Leaf Litter Sifter and Tullgren Funnels.......................................................23 Figure 4.1 – SAC of the SRE Fauna Data Using the Observed Number of Species (Sobs Mao Tau) for foraging, pitfall and combined methods and Michaelis‐Menten Kinetic Curve as a Stopping Rule.....................................................................................................................28 Figure 4.2 – Abundance Histogram of SRE Groups ................................................................................29 Figure 4.3 – Location of SRE Species ......................................................................................................30 Figure 4.4 – Beard Vegetation Units and SRE Survey Sites ....................................................................40 October 2011 v Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor SRE Survey APPENDICES Appendix A SURVEY SITE DATA .............................................................................................................51 Appendix B WAM DATABASE SEARCH ..................................................................................................75 Appendix C NATUREMAP DEC DATABASE SEARCH...............................................................................93 Appendix D ECOLOGIA DATABASE SEARCH...........................................................................................95 October 2011 vi Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor SRE Survey ACRONYMS BOM Bureau of Meteorology DEC Department of Environment and Conservation (formally CALM) ECU Edith Cowan University EIA Environmental Impact Assessment EP Environmental Protection Act 1986 EPA Environmental Protection Authority EPBC Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1950 FMG Fortescue Metals Group IBRA Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia SRE Short Range Endemic Study area All three potential rail corridors Project area Rail Corridor Option 2 WAM Western Australian Museum WC Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 October 2011 vii Brockman Resources Limited Rail Corridor SRE Survey EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Brockman Resources Limited has submitted a Miscellaneous Licence (L 45/225) application under the Mining Act 1978 for a railway corridor to connect the Marillana mining lease (M47/1414) to the existing FMG railway infrastructure. Brockman commissioned ecologia Environment to undertake a comprehensive biological survey of the short range endemic (SRE) invertebrate
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