STATE OF THE WET TROPICS REPORT 2013–2014 State of Wet Tropics Management Authority 2013-2014 Ancient, threatened and endemic plants of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area Purpose of the report Each year the Wet Tropics Management Authority prepares a report on the administration of the Act during the year, fi nancial statements for the year, and a report on the state of Area. This State of Wet Tropics report satisfi es the requirements of Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Protection and Management Act 1993 and the Commonwealth’s Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Conservation Act 1994. Public availability This publication can be accessed and downloaded from our website at www.wettropics.gov.au Alternatively, hard copies of this publication can be obtained by emailing [email protected] Interpreter service statement The Wet Tropics Management Authority is committed to providing accessible services to people from all culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. If you have diffi culty in understanding this report and need to access this document in a language other than English, please call the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National) on 131 450 and ask them to telephone the Queensland Government Library Services on +61 7 3224 8412. © Wet Tropics Management Authority 2014 Licence This report is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 3.0 Australia licence. CC BY Licence Summary Statement In essence, you are free to copy, communicate and adapt this annual report, as long as you attribute the work to the Wet Tropics Management Authority. To view a copy of this licence, visit www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en Attribution Content from this annual report should be attributed as: Wet Tropics Management Authority (2014) State of Wet Tropics Report 2013/14: Ancient, threatened and endemic plants of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Acknowledgments Original data in this report was collected with support from the Australian Government’s Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (MTSRF), National Environmental Research Program (NERP) and Terrestrial Research Network (TERN). We would like to thank Stuart Worboys (Australian Tropical Herbarium), Andrew Ford (CSIRO), Professor Darren Crayn (Australian Tropical Herbarium) and Dr Dan Metcalfe (CSIRO) for preparing the draft report. Thanks to Dr Steve Goosem and Ellen Weber (Wet Tropics Management Authority) for reviewing the draft. We are grateful to David Hilbert (CSIRO), Jeremy Vanderwal (James Cook University) and Karel Mokany (CSIRO) for allowing the use and modifi cation of their published maps. Thanks to Mike Stott (Wet Tropics Management Authority) who assisted with preparation of those maps. We would like to acknowledge Andi Cairns (James Cook University), Campbell Clarke (Wet Tropics Management Authority), Ashley Field (Queensland Herbarium and Australian Tropical Herbarium), David Meagher, Dan Metcalfe (CSIRO), Andrew Ford (CSIRO), Mike Trennery, Gary Wilson and Stuart Worboys (Australian Tropical Herbarium) who kindly allowed us use of their photographs. Disclaimer This document has been prepared with all due diligence and care, based on the best available information at the time of publication. The Authority holds no responsibility for any errors or omissions within this document. Any decisions made by other parties based on this document are solely the responsibility of those parties. Further information Wet Tropics Management Authority PO Box 2050, Cairns QLD 4870 Phone: (07) 4241 0555 | [email protected] ISSN 978-1-921591-70-9 This report is printed on Monza Satin 55% Recycled, FSC® Mix Sources product group from well-managed forests, controlled sources and recycled wood or fi ber. www.fsc.org Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction 5 Ancient, threatened and endemic fl ora of the Wet Tropics 7 Summary 7 A living record of the major stages in the Earth’s evolutionary history 7 Origins of the land plants and the Wet Tropics fl ora 9 The bryophytes - the fi rst land plants 10 The age of ferns (385 to 285 mya) 11 The age of conifers (208 to 144 mya) 13 The age of angiosperms (144 mya to the present day) 15 Habitat for threatened species of Outstanding Universal Value 20 Irreplaceability in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area 23 Understanding the Outstanding Universal Value of the Wet Tropics’ fl ora 33 Summary 33 Geology and geomorphology 33 Climate 34 Vegetation 34 Diversity of the Wet Tropics’ fl ora-species and lineages 34 A re-evaluation of Queensland’s Wet Tropics “primitive” plants 36 The role of refugia in the conservation of the Wet Tropics fl ora 38 Other centres of endemism 39 State of the Wet Tropics fl ora 40 Summary 40 Pressures affecting the fl ora of the Wet Tropics 41 Monitoring the integrity of ancient plants as an attribute of Outstanding Universal Value 48 What price the intangible? Value of the Wet Tropics fl ora 52 Outlook 54 Trends 54 Managing for ecological resilience 55 Appendix I – Wet Tropics Plants of Ancient Lineage 58 Appendix II – Endemic Plants of the Wet Tropics 63 Appendix III – Threatened Plants of the Wet Tropics 81 Terms and abbreviations 90 References 93 Executive Summary Plant biodiversity of the Wet Rainforests dominate the vegetation of Tropics is of global signifi cance the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. They contain the most habitat, community The Wet Tropics of Queensland World and species diversity; this diversity is the Heritage Area supports an extraordinary product of two major factors: inheritance assemblage of plants. Despite comprising - the survival of elements of the ancient only a very small proportion of the Gondwanan rainforest fl ora; and immigra- Australian continent, it supports a very tion - the arrival of plant lineages from the high proportion of Australia’s plant north after the Australia-New Guinea land diversity. The Wet Tropics has recently mass approached the Asian landmasses been ranked as the second most in geologically recent time. Subsequently, irreplaceable natural terrestrial World the interaction of geography and climate Heritage Area. The distinctive and diverse have maintained an archipelago of refugia, assemblages of plants that exist in the or areas of relative climate stability, that Area occur because of fi nely balanced have helped to maintain this biodiversity ecological and climatic conditions. Invasive through the climate fl uctuations of the last species, climate change and habitat 100,000 years. fragmentation threaten to disrupt these fi nely balanced conditions, and may result The Outstanding Universal Value for which in rapid and catastrophic changes that the Wet Tropics is recognised lies not increasingly threaten the region’s fl ora and just in the number of plant species and ecological systems. the high degree of endemicity or species unique to the region, but the evolutionary The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is diversity these species represent. The a living museum containing one of the World Heritage Area contains one of most complete and diverse living records the world’s most complete and diverse of the major stages in the evolution of living records of the major stages in the land plants in the world. It conserves evolution of land plants. Amongst the a largely intact fl ora, with hundreds of vascular plants, the World Heritage Area locally endemic species restricted within contains almost 60% of Australia’s ferns its boundaries. It also provides the only and lycophytes, three of Australia’s four habitat for more locally endemic, threat- cycad genera, and six out of 13 conifer ened and ancient plants than anywhere genera. else in Australia. The Wet Tropics bioregion conserves 41% of all Queensland’s The Wet Tropics also contains the highest vascular plant species in slightly over 1% of concentrations of species of ancient the State’s land area. lineages of fl owering plants in the world, including one endemic family, the Austro- In a recent assessment of the world’s baileyaceae, which is found nowhere else 172,000 protected areas, the Wet Tropics on Earth. Heritage Area ranked amongst the top 10 most irreplaceable, a measure of its signifi cance for the conservation of endemic and threatened species. 1 STATE OF THE WET TROPICS REPORT 2013 – 2014 The extraordinary richness and uniqueness Management challenges of the Wet Tropics fl ora contributes not The distinctive and diverse assemblages of only to the natural values of the area, but plants in the Wet Tropics are the result of also to the cultural and economic ones. A fi nely balanced climatic conditions that, in number of species are used by rainforest turn, are due to the latitude and topog- Traditional Owners in the World Heritage raphy of the region and its proximity to Area, which prior to European settlement easterly winds carrying moisture from the was one of the most populated areas of Pacifi c Ocean. Climate change threatens to Australia, and the only area where Aborigi- disrupt these climatic conditions and may nal people of Australia lived permanently result in rapid and catastrophic changes to in the rainforest. Many species now also the regional environment that will limit the have iconic status for non-Indigenous extent of rainforests and potentially lead peoples. In economic terms, the threat- to the extinction of many of the region’s ened, ancient and endemic fl ora give the endemic plant species. World Heritage Area a unique identity that provides a basis for a thriving ecotourism The Wet Tropics bioregion contains 348 industry, the major economic input to species (8% of the total fl ora) listed as the regional economy. Future economic threatened under the Commonwealth’s benefi ts may derive from horticultural Environmental Protection and Biodiversity or biodiscovery industries based on Wet Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act) Tropics biodiversity. and/or the Queensland Nature Conser- vation (Wildlife) Regulation 2006 (NCR).