TARGETED SURVEY OF VEGETATION FLORISTIC COMMUNITY TYPES IN HIGH WYCOMBE FOR THE FORRESTFIELD-AIRPORT LINK PROJECT Prepared for Public Transport Authority by Brian Morgan Consultant Botanist January 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................ i 1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Scope of the study.............................................................................................................. 1 1.3 The survey area ................................................................................................................. 2 2.0 SITE DESCRIPTION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION.............................................. 5 2.1 Physical Environment......................................................................................................... 5 2.1.1 Climate .......................................................................................................................... 5 2.1.2 Geomorphology of the survey area .................................................................................... 5 2.2 Vegetation background ....................................................................................................... 5 2.2.1 Regional vegetation ......................................................................................................... 5 2.2.2 Rare vegetation: Threatened Ecological Communities (TECs) and Priority Ecological Communities (PECs) ................................................................................................................ 6 2.2.3 Bush Forever Sites .......................................................................................................... 8 3.0 METHODS AND LIMITATIONS ..................................................................................... 11 3.1 Timing of the survey ........................................................................................................ 11 3.2 Vegetation survey ............................................................................................................ 11 3.2.1 Collection of the quadrat data ......................................................................................... 11 3.2.2 Limitations of the quadrat survey .................................................................................... 12 3.3 Mapping vegetation condition ........................................................................................... 12 3.4 PATN analysis of vegetation units and Floristic Community Types (FCTs) ............................. 12 3.4.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................. 12 3.4.2 Data compatibility ......................................................................................................... 12 3.4.3 Data preparation ........................................................................................................... 13 3.4.4 PATN analysis and determination of FCT......................................................................... 13 3.4.5 Limitations of the floristic analysis .................................................................................. 14 3.5 Mapping FCTs ................................................................................................................ 14 3.5.1 Methods of FCT mapping............................................................................................... 14 3.5.2 Limitations of FCT mapping ........................................................................................... 14 3.6 Identification of Threatened Ecological Communities (TECs) and Priority Ecological Communities (PECS). ............................................................................................................ 15 4.0 FLORA IN THE SURVEY QUADRATS ........................................................................... 16 4.1 Significant flora recorded in the survey quadrats .................................................................. 16 5.0 RESULTS OF THE QUADRAT SURVEY AND VEGETATION CONDITION MAPPING ..... 17 5.1 Quadrat descriptions ........................................................................................................ 17 5.2 Quadrat species richness ................................................................................................... 17 5.3 Vegetation condition ........................................................................................................ 17 6.0 FLORISTIC COMMUNITY TYPES, THREATENED ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES AND PRIORITY ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES................................................................... 21 6.1 Floristic analysis .............................................................................................................. 21 6.1.1 Data compatability ........................................................................................................ 21 6.1.2 PATN analysis and FCTs ............................................................................................... 21 6.1.3 Occurrence of taxa indicative of particular FCTs ............................................................... 21 6.1.4 Geographic occurrence of Floristic Community Types (FCT) .............................................. 22 6.1.6 Status of the FCTs in the FAL survey area: Threatened Ecological Communities and Priority Ecological Communities ............................................................................................. 26 7.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................. 30 7.1 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 30 7.2 Recommendation ............................................................................................................. 31 8.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................... 32 9.0 REFERENCES................................................................................................................ 33 APPENDICES ...................................................................................................................... 41 APPENDIX ONE. EPBC Act Protected Matters search report ..................................................... 43 APPENDIX TWO. Vegetation structural table of Trudgen based on Aplin's (1979) modification of Specht's classification ......................................................................................................... 55 APPENDIX THREE. Vegetation condition scale (Department of Environmental Protection, 2000). .................................................................................................................................. 56 APPENDIX FOUR Conservation Codes for Western Australian Flora ......................................... 57 APPENDIX FIVE List of flora recorded at the FAL quadrat sites (Area 1 and Area 2) ................... 59 APPENDIX SIX Quadrat descriptions and species lists for the FAL survey area ............................ 65 APPENDIX SEVEN. “PATN Analysis of the FAL survey quadrats” ........................................... 82 List of Tables Table 1. FAL survey area quadrat species richness ............................................................................ 17 Table 2. FCTs estimated from the all-sites PATN dendrogram classification and nearest neighbours analysis (NNB) and from a single site insertion (SSI) PATN dendrogram classification (see Appendix 7), together with the authors overall summary of analysis results and a final FCT determination, which also considers other factors. ............................................................ 24 Table 3. Average weed species numbers in the SCP dataset FCT sites................................................ 25 Table 4. The frequency of occurrence of selected species in sample sites of a selection of FCTs (sourced from the Gibson et al. (1994) dataset). .................................................................................. 25 Table 5. Floristic Community Type (FCT) determinations for Areas 1 and 2 and their TEC/PEC status ................................................................................................................................................. 27 List of Figures Figure 1. Site Location ........................................................................................................................ 3 Figure 2. DPaW TEC/ PEC Search Results ......................................................................................... 9 Figure 3. Area 1 Vegetation Condition .............................................................................................. 19 Figure 4. Area 2 Vegetation Condition .............................................................................................. 20 Figure 5. Area 1 FCT Map ................................................................................................................ 28 Figure 6. Area 2 FCT Map ................................................................................................................ 29 List of