Increasing the Resilience of the Australian Alpine Flora to Climate Change and Associated Threats: a Plant Functional Traits Approach Final Report
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Increasing the resilience of the Australian alpine flora to climate change and associated threats: A plant functional traits approach Final Report Catherine Pickering and Susanna Venn Increasing the resilience of the Australian alpine flora to climate change and associated threats: A plant functional traits approach School of Environment Griffith University AUTHORS Catherine Pickering Susanna Venn Published by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility 2013 ISBN: 978-1-925039-32-0 NCCARF Publication 61/13 Australian copyright law applies. For permission to reproduce any part of this document, please approach the authors. Please cite this report as: Pickering, CM & Venn, SE 2013, Increasing the resilience of the Australian alpine flora to climate change and associated threats: A plant functional traits approach, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, 84 pp. Acknowledgement This work was carried out with financial support from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. The role of NCCARF is to lead the research community in a national interdisciplinary effort to generate the information needed by decision-makers in government, business and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risk of climate change impacts. We recognise and appreciate the input of Dr Ken Green who has collaborated with us on several of the datasets analysed here, as well as provided valuable comments on the text, including on the section on climate change impacts. Dr Sarah Butler undertook the analysis of the fire datasets and participated in the collection of the functional trait data and is lead author on two of the papers arising from this project. We appreciate all her hard work on this project and insights into the analysis of these fire datasets. Dr Pascal Scherrer kindly gave permission for us to use the composition data from the long term transects monitoring recovery from cattle grazing originally collected by Dr Dane Winbush and Dr Alec Costin. Agustina Barros, Sebastian Rossi, Mark Ballantyne, Wendy Hill, Rochelle Stevens and Daniela Guitart all contributed to this project variously assisting in field-work, searching herbarium records, data entry and discussions and/or comments on the manuscript. We thank them for their hard work. Disclaimer The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth or NCCARF, and neither the Commonwealth nor NCCARF accept responsibility for information or advice contained herein. Cover image: © Catherine Pickering TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................... 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................... 2 1. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH ............................................................................................ 4 2. THE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT ..................................................................... 7 2.1 THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS ............................................................................................................ 7 2.2 KOSCIUSZKO NATIONAL PARK .................................................................................................. 8 2.3 THE KOSCIUSZKO ALPINE ZONE ................................................................................................ 9 3. CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS .................................................................... 15 3.1 BIOPHYSICAL IMPACTS........................................................................................................... 15 3.2 DIRECT BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE .................................................................. 18 3.3 CLIMATE CHANGE IS ALREADY OCCURRING .............................................................................. 18 3.4 CLIMATE CHANGE EXACERBATES EXISTING THREATS ................................................................ 19 3.5 MONITORING CLIMATE CHANGE AND IMPACTS .......................................................................... 20 4. FUNCTIONAL TRAITS AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY .......................................................... 21 4.1 THEORY ............................................................................................................................... 21 4.2 SELECTION OF FUNCTIONAL TRAITS FOR THIS ANALYSIS ............................................................ 21 4.3 FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY ......................................................................................................... 24 4.4 OVERVIEW TO THE RESEARCH ACTIVITIES AND METHODS .......................................................... 25 4.5 PREDICTING CHANGES IN FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY .................................................................... 27 5. FUNCTIONAL TRAITS OF AUSTRALIAN ALPINE PLANTS ................................................... 29 5.1 CONTEXT ............................................................................................................................. 29 5.2 BACKGROUND....................................................................................................................... 29 5.3 METHODS............................................................................................................................. 29 5.4 RESULTS .............................................................................................................................. 31 5.4.1 Variation in functional traits among species .................................................................... 31 5.4.2 Variation in functional traits depending on distribution ................................................ 35 5.4.3 Variation in functional traits amongst growth forms ......................................................... 38 5.5 IMPLICATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 39 6. FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY VARIES WITH CLIMATIC CONDITIONS ....................................... 41 6.1 SHORT TERM CLIMATE VARIATION AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY.................................................. 41 6.1.1 Context ........................................................................................................................... 41 6.1.2 Background ..................................................................................................................... 41 6.1.3 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 41 6.1.4 Results ............................................................................................................................ 42 6.1.5 Implications ..................................................................................................................... 46 6.2 CLIMATE AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY: GLORIA ...................................................................... 47 6.2.1 Context ........................................................................................................................... 47 6.2.2 Background ..................................................................................................................... 47 6.2.3 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 47 6.2.4 Results ............................................................................................................................ 49 6.2.5 Implications ..................................................................................................................... 49 6.3 CLIMATE AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY: SNOWPATCHES ............................................................. 51 6.3.1 Context ........................................................................................................................... 51 6.3.2 Background ..................................................................................................................... 51 6.3.3 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 51 6.3.4 Results ............................................................................................................................ 51 6.3.5 Implications ..................................................................................................................... 52 7. FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY AND FIRE ....................................................................................... 53 Increasing the resilience of Australian alpine flora to climate change and associated threats i 7.1 CONTEXT ............................................................................................................................. 53 7.2 BACKGROUND....................................................................................................................... 53 7.3 METHODS............................................................................................................................. 54 7.4 RESULTS .............................................................................................................................. 55 7.5 IMPLICATIONS ......................................................................................................................