Biodiversity and Environmental Change: Monitoring, Challenges and Direction

Long-term ecological data are critical for informing long-term trends in biodiversity and trends in environmental change. The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) is a major initiative of the Australian Government and one of its key areas of investment is to provide funding for a network of long-term ecological research plots around Australia (LTERN).

This book highlights some of the temporal changes in the environment and/or in biodiversity that have occurred in different ecosystems, ranging from tropical rainforests, wet eucalypt forests and alpine regions through to rangelands and deserts. Many important trends and changes are documented and they often provide new insights that were previously poorly understood or unknown. These data are precisely the kinds of data so desperately needed to better quantify the temporal trajectories in the environment and biodiversity in Australia.

Professor David B. Lindenmayer AO has worked as a researcher on Australian farms for more than 23 years. He has a particular interest in improving environmental conditions on farm properties, including protecting remnant native vegetation as well as restoring and replanting it. He specializes in establishing and maintaining ecological large-scale, long-term research and monitoring programs on farms. He has co-authored a number of other books, including Natural Asset Farming and Restoring Farm Woodlands for Wildlife.

Emma Burns is a conservation biologist in the Fenner School of Environment and Society and Executive Director of the Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTERN) within TERN.

Nicole Thurgate is an Associate Professor of Research at the University of Adelaide andthe director of the Multi-Scale Plot Network within TERN.

Andrew Lowe is Professor of Plant Conservation Biology and Director of the Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity at the University of Adelaide, Head of Science for the South Australian Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, and Associate Science Director of TERN.