Firewood harvest from forests of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Part 1: long-term, sustainable supply available from native forests

The Murray-Darling Basin is a 1 million km 2 agricultural region of south-eastern Australia, although 29% of it retains native forests. Some are mallee eucalypt types, whilst the \u27principal\u27 types are dominated mainly by other eucalypt species. One-third of the 6-7 million oven-dry tonne of firewood burnt annually in Australia is obtained from these forests, principally through collection of coarse woody debris. There are fears that removal of this debris may prejudice the floral and faunal biodiversity of the Basin. The present work considers what silvicultural management practices will allow the long-term maintenance of the native forests of the Basin and their continued contribution to its biodiversity. It then estimates that the maximum, long-term, annual, sustainable yield of firewood which could be harvested, by collection of coarse woody debris, from principal forest types of the Basin would be 10 million oven-dry tonne yr -1. An alternative, harvest of firewood from live trees by thinning the principal forests and clear-felling mallee forests, would be able to supply 2.3 million tonne yr -1 sustainably. Whilst coarse woody debris harvests could supply far more than the present demand for firewood from the Basin, they would lead to substantial reductions of the debris remaining in the forests; this may be detrimental to biodiversity maintenance. Live tree harvest does not lead to this problem, but would barely be able to supply existing firewood deman

Firewood harvest from forests of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Part 2: plantation resource required to supply present demand

The Murray-Darling Basin covers 1 M km 2 and occupies most of inland, south-eastern, mainland Australia. Large areas have been cleared and are now used for agriculture. In this paper, estimates are made of the minimum area of Eucalyptus globulus plantation forests needed to be established in the Basin to supply 2.25 M oven-dry t yr -1 of firewood annually, the amount of firewood harvested presently from the native forests which remain in the Basin. If plantations were established in higher rainfall areas along the eastern and southern boundaries of the Basin, it was estimated that a minimum of just over 200,000 ha of plantations would be required, grown on a 10-yr rotation. If plantations were restricted to less productive areas of lower rainfall (-1), or to areas where land clearing for agriculture has been particularly intensive, a minimum of just under 350,000 ha would be required, grown on an 11-yr rotation. If planting was restricted to soils in the Basin at high risk of salinisation from agriculture, which are generally in areas of lower rainfall, a minimum of about 600,000 ha would be required, grown on a 20-yr rotation. It is considered that the practicalities of plantation establishment in the Basin would require appreciably larger areas of plantations than these minima

Collection, curation and the use of humidification to restore nest shape in a research museum bird nest collection

Abstract Background Bird nests are an important part of avian ecology. They are a powerful tool for studying not only the birds that built them, but a wide array of topics ranging from parasitology, urbanisation and climate change to evolution. Despite this, bird nests tend to be underrepresented in natural history collections, a problem that should be redressed through renewed focus by collecting institutions. Methods Here we outline the history and current best practice collection and curatorial methods for the nest collection of the Australian National Wildlife Collection (ANWC). We also describe an experiment conducted on nests in the ANWC using ultrasonic humidification to restore the shape of nests damaged by inappropriate storage. Results The experiment showed that damaged nests can be successfully reshaped to close to their original dimensions. Indeed, restored nests were significantly closer to their original shape than they were prior to restoration. Thus, even nests damaged by years of neglect may be fully incorporated into active research collections. Best practice techniques include extensive note taking and photography in the field, subsampling of nests that cannot or should not be collected, appropriate field storage, metadata management, and prompt treatment upon arrival at the collection facility. Conclusions Renewed focus on nest collections should include appropriate care and restoration of current collections, as well as expansion to redress past underrepresentation. This could include collaboration with researchers studying or monitoring avian nesting ecology, and nest collection after use in bird species that rebuild anew each nesting attempt. Modern expansion of museum nest collections will allow researchers and natural history collections to fully realise the scientific potential of these complex and beautiful specimens

B-HIT - A Tool for Harvesting and Indexing Biodiversity Data.

With the rapidly growing number of data publishers, the process of harvesting and indexing information to offer advanced search and discovery becomes a critical bottleneck in globally distributed primary biodiversity data infrastructures. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) implemented a Harvesting and Indexing Toolkit (HIT), which largely automates data harvesting activities for hundreds of collection and observational data providers. The team of the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem has extended this well-established system with a range of additional functions, including improved processing of multiple taxon identifications, the ability to represent associations between specimen and observation units, new data quality control and new reporting capabilities. The open source software B-HIT can be freely installed and used for setting up thematic networks serving the demands of particular user groups

ABCD versions supported by the GBIF-HIT and B-HIT.

<p>Supported ABCD versions are marked with an X.</p><p>ABCD versions supported by the GBIF-HIT and B-HIT.</p

Representation of associated units in ABCD 2.1.

<p>A DNA Sample with the triple ID “DB 4745—BGBM—DNA Bank” is associated to a tissue (triple ID “B GT 0004682—BGBM—Herbarium Berolinense”). This tissue is associated to a herbarium sheet (triple ID “B 10 0163635—BGBM—Herbarium Berolinense”). The associated dataset access point and triple ID make it possible to retrieve each record.</p

GBIF-HIT Harvesting process.

<p>It consists of 4 major steps that have to be executed after each update of a datasource. The harvested data is eventually parsed and stored into the database.</p

Principal model of raw and improved data in the B-HIT database.

<p>Corresponding raw and improved table (i.e. identification from the provider and improved identification) are linked through a 1–1 relation. Multiple identifications can be associated to a single record and are therefore linked through a 1-n relation with the (raw) occurrence table.</p

Export subset of the quality logs.

<p>The dedicated tables, for each kind of test, store the test name, the value from the provider, the improved value, and a brief explanation. The list of concerned records is also saved in the quality tables for helping the provider to find and correct its data.</p><p>Export subset of the quality logs.</p

Web interface of B-HIT.

<p>This extended user-interface makes it possible to gain access to the new functionalities (i.e. Associated Datasource Harvesting, Data quality, Datasource Management) through a series of tabs.</p