Authors
William F Laurance, Bernard Dell, Stephen M Turton, Michael J Lawes, Lindsay B Hutley, Hamish McCallum, Patricia Dale, Michael Bird, Giles Hardy, Gavin Prideaux, Ben Gawne, Clive R McMahon, Richard Yu, Jean-Marc Hero, Lin Schwarzkopf, Andrew Krockenberger, Michael Douglas, Ewen Silvester, Michael Mahony, Karen Vella, Udoy Saikia, Carl-Henrik Wahren, Zhihong Xu, Bradley Smith, Chris Cocklin
Publication date
2011/5/1
Journal
Biological Conservation
Volume
144
Issue
5
Pages
1472-1480
Publisher
Elsevier
Description
We identify the 10 major terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Australia most vulnerable to tipping points, in which modest environmental changes can cause disproportionately large changes in ecosystem properties. To accomplish this we independently surveyed the coauthors of this paper to produce a list of candidate ecosystems, and then refined this list during a 2-day workshop. The list includes (1) elevationally restricted mountain ecosystems, (2) tropical savannas, (3) coastal floodplains and wetlands, (4) coral reefs, (5) drier rainforests, (6) wetlands and floodplains in the Murray-Darling Basin, (7) the Mediterranean ecosystems of southwestern Australia, (8) offshore islands, (9) temperate eucalypt forests, and (10) salt marshes and mangroves. Some of these ecosystems are vulnerable to widespread phase-changes that could fundamentally alter ecosystem properties such as habitat structure, species …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
WF Laurance, B Dell, SM Turton, MJ Lawes, LB Hutley… - Biological Conservation, 2011