Appendix 1 Development of the AusPlots Fauna Survey Protocol Surveillance monitoring program The Enhancing long-term surveillance monitoring across Australian program was supported by the Department of the Environment as part of a suite of activities to build Australia’s surveillance monitoring capacity around a small set of terrestrial biodiversity indicators. It is envisaged that this improved capacity will potentially have benefit and applicability to national environmental reporting, for example through the headline environmental indicators (Environment Budget Statement 2014) and State of the Environment reporting. The Department invested in the ‘Enhanced Surveillance Monitoring’ project with TERN to: . Provide clear guidance on what to survey – what and how – to contribute to a reliable, comprehensive national longitudinal dataset on biodiversity . Collaborate on this with scientific and management organisations engaged in vegetation and fauna monitoring across the continent . Allow non-expert citizen scientists to generate data, which is relevant to local decisions and reporting. Key elements of this work are about building consensus, building on the best of existing approaches, and development something simple, affordable and meaningful. Fauna survey protocols A discrete component of this project was to develop fauna survey protocols to complement the existing AusPlots Rangelands Protocols (White et al. 2012), with the aim to: . improve our understanding of distributions, abundance and richness of fauna species across Australia’s rangelands . build understanding of the relationship between habitat dynamics and fauna species population dynamics . provide a baseline against which future change can be assessed . fill a key gap in our ability to understand and report trends in Australian biota . develop an improved understanding to the degree to which vegetation and condition attributes can be used as surrogates for fauna in biodiversity monitoring. Scope of the fauna survey protocols From this starting point, a national working group of expert stakeholders was formed to collaboratively develop the ‘AusPlots Fauna Survey Protocols’. The purpose of the workshop was to come up with a fit for purpose protocol for how you would monitor fauna for the purpose of surveillance monitoring, ensuring Broadscale repeatable methods. The working group defined surveillance monitoring for fauna purposes, identified and reviewed methods to achieve fauna monitoring, identified the differences to targeted fauna monitoring, identified jurisdictional and ecosystem differences in standard fauna surveys for inventory purposes, reviewed and discussed the types of information for collection. The following details were agreed to clarify inclusions in the scope of the fauna survey protocols project. Fauna community based approach. Core components to be based on: pitfall trapping, with a minimum of four consecutive trap nights focus on mammals and reptiles . Optional components to include: acoustic sampling camera trapping bird surveys invertebrate sampling. Need to develop a rule set for when to implement the optional components, especially for Elliott trapping, cage trapping, funnel trapping and active searching. The rules need to consider: community, landscape, terrain, the species likely to be uncounted, and funding. Need to develop rules (or guidelines) for when whole specimen vouchering should be conducted (timing within the fauna survey, and number of individuals to be collected per cluster of plots). Guidelines need to be consistent with jurisdictional requirements and local museum requirements. Ideally AusPlots fauna sites will be co-located with AusPlots Rangelands vegetation and soils plots. Sites could be paired and immediately adjacent to the vegetation and soils plot, or clustered, i.e. more than one fauna site in proximity to a vegetation and soils plot. Stratification to selection location of the fauna sites to be considered with the stratification associated with the vegetation and soils plots. The following details were agreed to clarify exclusions from the scope of the fauna survey protocols. Targeted monitoring, particularly at the species level, is not the focus. Targeted monitoring includes specialised survey techniques (including trap types) necessary to adequately species of interest. Inventory data is considered essentially a bi-product of the surveys, and not the primary focus. Morphological measurements of captured individuals other than measurements to aid identification and categorise age-classes, is not the focus of the protocols, but seen as additional data to be taken advantage of since the animal is in-the-hand. Process to develop fauna survey protocols Figure 1 shows the process used to develop the fauna survey protocols. It is important to note that this process is ongoing – this manual (v0.1) represents a basis for ongoing engagement, discussion, and refinement towards a fauna surveys protocol that is nationally accepted and consistent. This kind of wide engagement requires the building of relationships and trust with key stakeholders, a process which takes more time than the length of this project. Key elements of the development process are discussion in more detail below, along with recommended future steps to refine and finish the fauna survey protocols. National working group A national working group of expert stakeholders was formed to collaboratively develop the ‘AusPlots Fauna Survey Protocols’. A key activity of this working group was a workshop held in February 2015 (minutes available at: http: www.ausplots.org.au/ecosystem-surveillance). The working group defined surveillance monitoring for fauna purposes, identified and reviewed methods to achieve fauna monitoring, identified the key differences to targeted fauna monitoring and identified jurisdictional and ecosystem differences in standard fauna surveys for inventory purposes, thereby defining the scope of the fauna survey protocols, and reviewed and discussed the types of information for collection. Review of jurisdictional fauna survey methods A literature review collated standard jurisdictional fauna survey methods typically used for inventory surveys, and where available monitoring surveys. A key focus was on animal ethics and permit requirements so that minimum requirements could be easily identified and be incorporated into the various guidelines of the AusPlots Fauna Survey Protocols manual (this document). The goal is to ensure that all AusPlots fauna surveys meet these minimum requirements regardless of the jurisdiction. Field trials Building on the outcomes of the working group and review of the jurisdictional survey methods, a draft survey method was developed, distributed to working group members for initial review, and field tested in April/May 2015 at Calperum Station (Riverland, South Australia). Four fauna sites were established, each being paired with existing AusPlots Rangelands vegetation and soils plots. Three of the sites (SASMDD008, SASMDD012, SASMDD017) were high-intensity plots, consisting of: 21 pitfalls (buckets) and 8 funnel traps along 3 parallel lines of 7 pitfalls, 10 m apart, total 100 m drift fence for each line, 30 m between lines, with 20 Elliott traps trapped for 5-6 consecutive nights. One medium-intensity fauna site (SASMDD016) was established, consisting of 4 pitfalls (buckets) and 6 funnels in a T-formation, with 20 Elliott’s, trapped for 5 nights. No bird or bat survey techniques were employed. Captured individuals were identified to species level, measured and photographed, and released at the point of capture. Tissue samples were taken from selected individuals, and elected adult individuals were taken as whole specimen vouchers. Both tissue and whole individual specimens were donated to the South Australia Museum. Data from the field trails has been made publicly available via the TERN Eco-informatics SHaRED database and available at http://www.aekos.org.au/dataset/213230. Through the field testing and subsequent review, key working group members refined the method to produce the v0.1 protocols that are presented in this manual. The following edits were made the field tested survey design: . Trapping module: The number of pitfalls per site was reduced from 21 to 12 for high-intensity sites, but increased from 4 pitfalls in a T-formation to 6 pitfalls in a single line for medium-intensity sites. The proposed protocols (as presented in v0.1, this manual) involve 2 lines of 6 pitfalls (high intensity sites) or 1 line of 6 pitfalls (medium intensity sites), along 60 m drift fences, with pitfalls 8-10 m apart, and 4 funnel traps per line, in 2 pairs along the line, with an optional 20 Elliott traps, and 2 cage traps. The number of consecutive trap nights increased from a recommended four nights, to a minimum of five nights and a recommended seven nights. The type of pitfalls remains to be determined by the survey coordinator. Ideally for logistical reasons, collapsible pitfalls that measure similar dimensions to 20 L buckets are preferred. In environments where agile jumping species, such as hopping-mice (Notomys sp.) and sandhill dunnarts (Sminthopsis psammophila) deeper pitfalls should be used to maximise captures. The use of Elliott and cage traps remains to be determined by the survey coordinator. Whole animal vouchering module: Whole animal vouchers remain a recommendation, with a minimum of 1-2 individuals per cluster. Tissue specimen module: Collection of tissue specimens from all captured