Why do some plant and animal species thrive in the city while others disappear?
Most ecological studies are done in natural environments not in towns and cities so we lack information on urban ecology.
A team from Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens is changing that.
Australian Rivers Institute’s Assoc. Prof. Peter Pollard has researched rainforest lakes and rivers to test a provocative theory. The respiration of bacteria living and ‘breathing’ in these freshwater ecosystems is a major pathway for the return of rainforest carbon back to the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Continue reading Are forests really the carbon sink we need?
The health of southeast Queensland’s rivers, creeks and catchment areas are under scrutiny with the release of the 2009 Ecosystem Health Report Card.
Kilometre-wide erosion gullies eating their way across Australia’s northern landscape are proving likely culprits as the main source of the sediments that are flushed into the Gulf of Carpentaria each year, possibly smothering prawn and barramundi breeding and rearing habitats.
Continue reading Erosion and dams threaten barramundi and prawn fisheries