Journal of Ecology and Environment

The Ecological Society of Korea (한국생태학회)
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The Great Western Woodlands TERN SuperSite: ecosystem monitoring infrastructure and key science learnings

  • Received : 2023.10.20
  • Accepted : 2023.11.17
  • Published : 2023.12.31
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Abstract

Ecosystem observatories are burgeoning globally in an endeavour to detect national and global scale trends in the state of biodiversity and ecosystems in an era of rapid environmental change. In this paper we highlight the additional importance of regional scale outcomes of such infrastructure, through an introduction to the Great Western Woodlands TERN (Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network) SuperSite, and key findings from three gradient plot networks that are part of this infrastructure. The SuperSite was established in 2012 in the 160,000 km2 Great Western Woodlands region, in a collaboration involving 12 organisations. This region is globally significant for its largely intact, diverse landscapes, including the world's largest Mediterranean-climate woodlands and highly diverse sandplain shrublands. The dominant woodland eucalypts are fire-sensitive, requiring hundreds of years to regrow after fire. Old-growth woodlands are highly valued by Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, and managing impacts of climate change and the increasing extent of intense fires are key regional management challenges. Like other TERN SuperSites, the Great Western Woodlands TERN SuperSite includes a core eddy-covariance flux tower measuring exchanges of carbon, water and energy between the vegetation and atmosphere, along with additional environmental and biodiversity monitoring around the tower. The broader SuperSite incorporates three gradient plot networks. Two of these represent aridity gradients, in sandplains and woodlands, informing regional climate adaptation and biodiversity management by characterising biodiversity turnover along spatial climate gradients and acting as sentinels for ecosystem change over time. For example, the sandplains transect has demonstrated extremely high spatial turnover rates in plant species, that challenge traditional approaches to biodiversity conservation. The third gradient plot network represents a 400-year fire-age gradient in Eucalyptus salubris woodlands. It has enabled characterisation of post-fire recovery of vegetation, birds and invertebrates over multi-century timeframes, and provided tools that are directly informing management to reduce stand-replacing fires in eucalypt woodlands. By building regional partnerships and applying globally or nationally consistent methodologies to regional scale questions, ecological observatories have the power not only to detect national and global scale trends in biodiversity and ecosystems, but to directly inform environmental decisions that are critical at regional scales.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The research described involved many individuals in addition to the authors, including Dr Margaret Byrne and Mr Nigel Wessels (DBCA), Dr Neil Gibson, Mr Ian Kealley OAM and Dr Rachel Meissner (previously DBCA), Prof. Stephen van Leeuwen (Curtin University), Prof. Jason Beringer and Dr Caitlin Moore (University of Western Australia), Dr Richard Silberstein (Edith Cowan University), Prof. Will Edwards (James Cook University) and Dr Rachel Standish (Murdoch University). The Great Western Woodlands TERN SuperSite includes the traditional lands of a number of First Nations peoples including Ngadju, Wongi and Noongar Nations Peoples.

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