The four priority biomes are:
- Northern savanna grasslands: wet and dry tropics, including grassy savanna woodlands (Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia)
- South-East Australian sclerophyll forests: wet and dry sclerophyll forests (NSW, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania, Queensland, South Australia)
- Hummock grasslands of Central Australia: Spinifex grasslands, and acacia and eucalypt woodlands with spinifex understory (Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Qld and NSW)
- Temperate lowland grassy ecosystems: tussock grasslands, grassy woodlands (Eastern Australia ie. NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland). This project focuses on understanding the environmental changes that will drive biodiversity change in four priority biomes.This project focuses on understanding the environmental changes that will drive biodiversity change in these biomes and what regionally specific management responses might be required.
The research included synthesising published information, expert and stakeholder knowledge, and new information from ecosystem modelling analyses.
The main areas of activity involved:
- producing four biome-specific reviews of baseline information and the potential impacts of climate change on ecosystems within each biome
- expert and stakeholder workshops on the implications of climate change for conservation and the reserve system in each biome
- modelling potential impacts at biome-scale, using three complementary quantitative techniques
synthesising results for each biome
- analysing and synthesising results across the four biomes, including qualitative analyses of the implications of climate change for conservation in the biome and the National Reserve System, highlighting common lessons, regionally specific lessons, and assessing the potential usefulness and limitations of different types of information for regional assessments across all biomes in Australia.
