Welcome to AustralianITEX
This is the first of an occasional newsletter to report progress on our new project on climate change in the Alps as well as related activities. Our new project funded through the Australian Research Council (Linkage scheme) is now up-and-running. Agreements have been signed by our partners (Department of Sustainability and Environment, Parks Victoria) and the University partners (Melbourne, La Trobe). The ITEX plots are being monitored and long term work assessing the impacts of burning on vegetation is continuing. In this first newsletter we will introduce participants in the project, outline some new exciting results, and provide an indication of where we intend to head in the next few years.
Our project uses novel experiments from vegetation ecology, soil ecology and ecological genetics to detect and evaluate the ecological consequences of climate change for plant biodiversity and ecological function in the Victorian Alps. Most of Australia's alpine ecosystems are within protected areas, but knowledge and tools are needed to manage these areas in the face of climate change. We are using passive warming chambers to measure the way alpine plants, invertebrates and soil processes are likely to respond to warming. We are also assessing the interaction between warming effects and fire, and evaluating the evolutionary potential of plants and animals. Rising global temperatures are a threat to alpine ecosystems world-wide, including Australia (IPCC 2007; http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports). Most of Australia's alpine ecosystems are within protected areas, but the knowledge and tools needed to manage protected areas globally in the face of climate change are poorly developed. Our project seeks to redress this deficiency in the Australian Alps by using novel experiments from vegetation ecology, soil ecology and ecological genetics to detect and evaluate the ecological consequences of climate change for plant biodiversity and ecological function in the Victorian Alps. The project builds on and extends experimental and modelling work funded from 2003-2007 through the ARC Linkage program, which utilises the experimental protocols developed by the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). For more information on ITEX, please visit their webpage at www.geog.ubc.ca/itex/
