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Prioritising Threatened Species and Threatening Processes Across Northern Australia: User Guide for Data

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Prioritising Threatened Species and Threatening Processes Across Northern Australia: User Guide for Data Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia User guide for data by Anna Pintor, Mark Kennard, Jorge G. Álvarez-Romero and Stephanie Hernandez © James Cook University, 2019 Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: User guide for data is licensed by James Cook University for use under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Australia licence. For licence conditions see creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 This report should be cited as: Pintor A,1 Kennard M,2 Álvarez-Romero JG,1,3 and Hernandez S.1 2019. Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: User guide for data. James Cook University, Townsville. 1. James Cook University 2. Griffith University 3. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies Cover photographs Front cover: Butler’s Dunnart is a threatened species which is found only on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory, photo Alaric Fisher. Back cover: One of the spatially explicit maps created during this project. This report is available for download from the Northern Australia Environmental Resources (NAER) Hub website at nespnorthern.edu.au The Hub is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program (NESP). The NESP NAER Hub is hosted by Charles Darwin University. ISBN 978-1-925800-44-9 December, 2019 Printed by Uniprint Contents Acronyms....................................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vii Executive summary .................................................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 Background and purpose ............................................................................................. 3 1.2 Study area .................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Data access.................................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Data format, extent and resolution .............................................................................. 6 2. Expert vetted species distribution models .......................................................................... 8 2.1 Data access.................................................................................................................. 8 2.2 Background .................................................................................................................. 8 2.3 Individual species distribution models ......................................................................... 8 2.4 Hotspot maps ............................................................................................................. 13 2.5 Limitations of the data set of species distributions .................................................... 15 3. Mapping threatening processes across northern Australia .............................................. 16 3.1 Data access................................................................................................................ 16 3.2 Background ................................................................................................................ 16 3.3 Outputs ....................................................................................................................... 16 3.3.1 Land clearing risk associated with intensive agriculture developments ............ 16 3.3.2 Risk of increased heat and drought from climate change .................................. 19 3.3.3 Risk of transmission of wildlife diseases ............................................................ 24 3.3.4 Risk associated with changes in fire regimes .................................................... 26 3.3.5 Risk associated with changes in stream flow regimes ....................................... 30 3.3.6 Risks associated with intensity of grazing practices .......................................... 34 3.3.7 Risks from invasive species ................................................................................ 36 3.3.8 Risk from current or potential mining activities ................................................... 41 3.3.9 Risk from inundation and associated effects from sea-level rise ....................... 42 3.3.10 Risks associated with accessibility of natural areas .......................................... 45 3.3.11 Risks associated with urbanising landscapes .................................................... 47 4. Species vulnerability mapping .......................................................................................... 49 Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: User guide for data | i 4.1 Data access................................................................................................................ 49 4.2 Background ................................................................................................................ 49 4.3 Outputs ....................................................................................................................... 50 4.3.1 Threats transformed for vulnerability analysis .................................................... 50 4.3.2 Species x threat interactions............................................................................... 50 4.3.3 Cumulative vulnerability ...................................................................................... 52 4.3.4 Limitations of the vulnerability data set .............................................................. 52 5. Key research findings and applications ............................................................................ 54 References ............................................................................................................................... 55 Appendix 1: Summary table of data locations, formats and descriptions ............................... 61 Appendix 2: Summary table of species modelled in this project ............................................. 63 Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: User guide for data | ii List of tables Table 1. Number of species modelled within each higher taxonomic group. ........................... 9 Table 2. Naming convention for species distribution models. ................................................. 13 Table 3. Description of available hotspot outputs. ................................................................... 14 Table 4. Agriculture output files. .............................................................................................. 18 Table 5. Climate change output files. ...................................................................................... 23 Table 6. Wildlife disease output files. ...................................................................................... 25 Table 7. Fire regime output files. ............................................................................................. 28 Table 8. Flow regime output files. ............................................................................................ 33 Table 9. Overgrazing risk output files. ..................................................................................... 35 Table 10. Invasive species output files. ................................................................................... 40 Table 11. Mining output files. ................................................................................................... 42 Table 12. Sea-level rise output files. ........................................................................................ 44 Table 13. Accessibility to potential overexploitation output files. ............................................ 46 Table 14. Urbanisation output files. ......................................................................................... 48 Table 15. Data files for species-specific exposure and vulnerability to individual threats. ..... 52 Table 16. Data files for summaries of cumulative vulnerabilities for each species and across different groups and threats .................................................................................... 52 Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: User guide for data | iii List of figures Figure 1. The spatial extent of the study region in northern Australia. Please note that some project outputs are available for all of Australia. Please contact the principal investigator of this study for any additional information regarding Australia-wide data. ...... 4 Figure 2. Directory structure of the RDSI collection Q0634 containing the project outputs. Figure 2A refers to the structure within the RDSI collection generally. Figure 2B refers to the refined contents within each of the “Plots”, “Public” and “Restricted” subfolders. ..... 6 Figure 3. Decision tree for use in selecting maps. .................................................................. 11 Figure 4. Example of the binary output types of distribution maps for the Northern Quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus). See Table
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