Papers by Grant Wardell-Johnson
Evolutionary Applications, Apr 8, 2021
Molecular Ecology, Jul 24, 2020
Restoration Ecology, Jun 13, 2019
Science of The Total Environment, Dec 1, 2020
Molecular Ecology, Feb 17, 2022
Invertebrates are important for restoration processes as they are key drivers of many landscape‐s... more Invertebrates are important for restoration processes as they are key drivers of many landscape‐scale ecosystem functions; including pollination, nutrient cycling and soil formation. However, invertebrates are often overlooked in restoration monitoring because they are highly diverse, poorly described, and time‐consuming to survey, and require increasingly scarce taxonomic expertise to enable identification. DNA metabarcoding is a relatively new tool for rapid survey that is able to address some of these concerns, and provide information about the taxa with which invertebrates are interacting via food webs and habitat. Here, we evaluate how invertebrate communities may be used to determine ecosystem trajectories during restoration. We collected ground‐dwelling and airborne invertebrates across chronosequences of mine‐site restoration in three ecologically disparate locations in Western Australia and identified invertebrate and plant communities using DNA metabarcoding. Ground‐dwelling invertebrates showed the clearest restoration signals, with communities becoming more similar to reference communities over time. These patterns were weaker in airborne invertebrates, which have higher dispersal abilities and therefore less local fidelity to environmental conditions. Although we detected directional changes in community composition indicative of invertebrate recovery, patterns observed were inconsistent between study locations. The inclusion of plant assays allowed identification of plant species, as well as potential food sources and habitat. We demonstrate that DNA metabarcoding of invertebrate communities can be used to evaluate restoration trajectories. Testing and incorporating new monitoring techniques such as DNA metabarcoding is critical to improving restoration outcomes.
Australian Journal of Botany, Jul 28, 2021
Journal of Arid Environments, Sep 1, 2018
Australian Journal of Botany, 2019
International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation, Feb 1, 2016
Problem: Often spreadsheets are used as pseudo-databases for the storage of plot-based survey dat... more Problem: Often spreadsheets are used as pseudo-databases for the storage of plot-based survey data, but they have major limitations in scalability, concurrent access and data retrieval. Paper-based surveys require time-consuming data entry. They contain potential inconsistencies (e.g. miss-spellings, abbreviations, missing values), particularly if coming from different observers due to unenforceable data standards.Methods: We analysed more than 30 years of data collected in the Northern Jarrah Forest (NJF) of south-western Australia, comprising c. 31,000 plots (c. 550,000 species records) and associated environmental variables stored across multiple spreadsheets in the development of our free and open source floristic information management system (FIMS). Data dictionaries were developed for each spreadsheet before being combined into a unified standard. OpenRefine software was used to ensure adherence to the standard, including correcting inconsistent field order in different files, removal of redundant or irrelevant fields, abolishing synonyms and abbreviations, and deleting incomplete rows. Database design and normalisation rules ensured the removal of repeating groups and the provision of fields for each retained attribute. Geometry was stored using spatial objects available in PostGIS whilst maintaining an otherwise relational database using PostgreSQL.Results: FIMS provides a spatial database system for storing, accessing and retrieving floristic survey data. FIMS includes a mobile data collection module for use on tablet technology with autonomous database synchronisation and one-step data entry to eliminate transcription and associated errors. Spatial data types enable the retrieval of data for viewing and analysis within most Geographic Information Systems and statistical software. It promotes portability and adaption to other locations and studies via the provision of all necessary code.
Diversity and Distributions, Jul 11, 2019
Biodiversity and Conservation, Aug 11, 2021
Despite the roles they play in ecosystem function, animals have have long been neglected in the m... more Despite the roles they play in ecosystem function, animals have have long been neglected in the monitoring of ecological restoration. Vertebrate surveys can be time consuming and costly, often requiring multiple methodologies and taxonomic expertise, making comprehensive monitoring cost prohibitive. Here, we evaluate a new method of assessing mammal and bird diversity through the genetic identification of scat collections. Using DNA metabarcoding of scat collections from three bioregions, we generated bird and mammalian assemblage data and distinguished between sites with different restoration histories. However, scat detectability was affected by environmental conditions (e.g. rainfall and vegetative cover), suggesting that our approach is most applicable at certain times of year or in arid (or semi-arid) environments with rocky soils, where conditions are favourable for scat preservation. Taken together these data provide a pathway to: plan, monitor and establish best-practice when restoring landscapes and add to the growing body of literature on the value of DNA metabarcoding in biomonitoring applications.
Ecology and Evolution, Jun 13, 2019
Australian Forestry, 2005
Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales eBooks, 2004
Use of Treasury material under a Creative Commons BY Attribution 3.0 Australia licence requires y... more Use of Treasury material under a Creative Commons BY Attribution 3.0 Australia licence requires you to attribute the work (but not in any way that suggests that the Treasury endorses you or your use of the work). Treasury material used 'as supplied' Provided you have not modified or transformed Treasury material in any way including, for example, by changing the Treasury text; calculating percentage changes; graphing or charting data; or deriving new statistics from published Treasury statistics-then Treasury prefers the following attribution: Source: The Australian Government the Treasury Derivative material If you have modified or transformed Treasury material, or derived new material from those of the Treasury in any way, then Treasury prefers the following attribution: Based on The Australian Government the Treasury data Use of the Coat of Arms The terms under which the Coat of Arms can be used are set out on the It's an Honour website (see www.itsanhonour.gov.au
Social alternatives, 2009
The tragedy of the Victorian fires must be a wake-up call as to how we as a society behave in rel... more The tragedy of the Victorian fires must be a wake-up call as to how we as a society behave in relation to the increasingly common weather extremes that are being experienced under climate changes as a result of human induced global warming. Fire has been a force of evolutionary and ecological influence in Australia for at least the last two million years. People have been coping and managing fire since they arrived in Australia. Extreme fires have been documented which have resulted in damage to people's property and loss of life as well as damage to ecosystems, ever since European settlement of Australia. Royal Commissions and other public inquiries have followed many of these damaging fires. The recent Victorian fires have already had a particularly profound impact on society because of the extremity of the fire behaviour, the unprecedented loss of human life and the destruction of social communities. These impacts will intensify as society recognises the broader implications of interactions between fire and climate change. Following each of the major fires that have impacted profoundly on human life and property in Australia, there have been calls for increased levels of prescribed burning to reduce the fuel load and hence reduce the impact of extreme fires. There have also been many other recommendations. The conditions allowing fire are the result of the interplay between fuel, weather and an ignition source. Each of these factors must be 'switched on' to allow fire. By 'switching on' I mean the fuel (which includes biomass - live material and necromass - dead material) must be available and sufficiently dry to burn. The weather must include sufficiently high temperatures and winds to allow fire to carry. And of course there must be an ignition source. The interplay of these factors varies in space and time throughout Australia and can be very different in adjacent ecological communities. The Victorian fires were a result of extremes in all of these factors. The forests of the area have considerable biomass, much of which - under extreme conditions - becomes available to burn. The temperatures and winds were extreme in areas of steep topography which will also influence the way fire behaves. There were many ignition sources, some of which involved arson. First principles demonstrate that climate change as a result of global warming will lead to increasing numbers of fires like those in Victorian in the near future (years to decades) as more frequent and more extreme weather conditions prevail, and as more people live in fire-prone landscapes. Analysis of weather records in many parts of Australia has demonstrated that there has been a steeply rising trend in numbers of extreme events (e.g. max temperature) for many years - a trend likely to intensify. Extreme fires will not be confined to Victoria. Changes in forest structure and ecosystems will accompany accelerating changes in climate and extreme weather. This may lead to transformed ecosystems as well as novel ecosystems. The longer term trends of fire behaviour in new ecosystems are very unclear, and depend on interactions of increased C02 levels and the trends in the climate parameters of temperature, humidity and wind. There is now sound knowledge of fire behaviour under a variety of weather conditions (heat and wind), under a variety of fuel conditions in a wide range of vegetation types. Landscape, land-use and environmental context are important to local fire behaviour and to fire regime. Increasing knowledge has also accumulated about fire behaviour under extreme conditions. The results are alarming. Many of the attributes of fire behaviour change exponentially with high temperature, wind or fuel. Prescribed burning has been used by people as a management tool in fire-prone landscapes for millennia. It is important because it is the only form of readily manageable broad-scale fuel reduction readily implemented by land management agencies. …
Austral Ecology, Apr 1, 2004
Uploads
Papers by Grant Wardell-Johnson