Conservation Planning and Connectivity

Wedge-tailed eagle, a wide-ranging top order predator that helps control the populations of prey species. Photo: Dave Watts

The WildCountry Science Council and other scientists have produced some seminal papers on the most important processes that define Australia’s natural systems.

These frequently emphasise the role of connections in natural systems.  These may be physical connections, for instance the connections between patches of vegetation that can be seen from the air. Many types of environmental connections are less obvious.

For instance, the connections between a river channel and a floodplain, which are most effective when enough water flows in the river to allow flooding.  The connections may also be more subtle, for instance, the link between pollinators and plants that require pollination or the relationship between carnivorous animals and their prey.

WildCountry Science shows that these types of connections and the processes that enable them are often critical in allowing natural systems to adapt and survive.

Conservation planning in Australia, for example; determining where to locate new reserves, focuses largely on the ‘compositional’ elements of biodiversity - species, ecosystems and landscapes.

WildCountry recognises the importance of these elements, but further questions how these features have evolved and persist.   It does this by considering  the ‘functional’ elements of ecosystems such as genetic processes, interactions between species, and landscape processes such as floods and bushfires.

WildCountry research focuses on these functional elements because if our protected areas and land management do not allow these ecological processes to continue we will see a decline in those more familiar elements of biodiversity such as individual species of flora and fauna. 

Thus, when WildCountry is applied to landscape protection and management it asks the question ‘what does nature need’?

Related articles:

The role of connectivity in Australian conservation