Frontier Science: the role of Territory government researchers in understanding the ecology of arid Australia

Chris R. Pavey

Biodiversity Conservation Division, NT Department of Natural Resources, Environment, Arts and Sport, Alice Springs, Australia

A higher portion of Australia is composed of arid environments than any other continent. Despite this, the development of ecological research programs in arid Australia has occurred slowly with little cohesion. This situation largely results from the extremely low population size of Australia’s arid zone, the remoteness of these areas from the significant population centres along the eastern coast, and the lack of a vision for understanding natural processes in arid regions. Arid Australia is very much a frontier region focussed on primary production, resource exploitation and, now, nature-based tourism, but until recently lacking significant research infrastructure.

The lack of universities and absence of other large research institutions, until CSIRO established its Alice Springs research centre in 1953, means that a significant amount of ecological research in arid Australia has been undertaken by state/territory government-based researchers. In the pre-Federation era government employees undertaking and contributing to ecological research were not scientists but rather postal workers. These men were based along the Adelaide to Darwin telegraph line opened in 1872 to provide rapid communication from Australia to England. The telegraph line was serviced by regular repeater stations at remote locations including Alice Springs, Charlotte Waters and Barrow Creek. Following the Horn Scientific Expedition of 1894 a number of these workers, particularly Paddy Byrne and Frank Gillen, set up strong working relationships with academics at the University of Melbourne (Baldwin Spencer) and University of Adelaide (E.C. Stirling). These collaborations lasted for decades and these men collected significant numbers of specimens and made natural history observations and recorded Indigenous Ecological Knowledge of the wildlife. A number of arid vertebrate species are named after them: Dasyuroides byrnei, Pseudomys fieldi, Varanus gilleni, Litoria gilleni. The Gillen and Spencer collaboration is now best known for its pioneering anthropological work. The success of these ventures is seen in the significant information available today generated by this research and the framework it has provided for contemporary applied research. For instance, the Gillen-Spencer collaboration is the source of ongoing academic research in cultural knowledge (http://spencerandgillen.org/); Paddy Byrne’s detailed understanding of the mammals of central Australia informs ongoing research on extinction processes;  Greg Fyfe and I rediscovered the endangered Slater’s Skink at Illamurta Springs in 2004 (then only the third known population of the species) by following up on a record of Ernest Cowle from the 1890s.

In the southern Northern Territory, the Territory government had an ecological research presence in Alice Springs (covering the region from the Barkly Tableland to the South Australian border) by the 1950s, and the size of the research effort grew in the following decades peaking in the late 1980s when 27 research staff were employed. The research focus over the first 50 years was multi-faceted. Conservation management of threatened mammals was understandably a key area given that central Australia is notorious for mammal extinctions (e.g. Johnson 2006). This work is noteworthy in this regard because of its strong links with Indigenous people and the use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in field-based contexts, especially in the Tanami Desert, and its success in saving one species, the mala or rufous hare-wallaby, from extinction. An example of this work is the use of Warlpiri (Aboriginal people from the large desert area north-west of Alice Springs) knowledge of the species to choose the site for reintroduction efforts in the Tanami Desert (Langford 1999). Other threatened species projects focussed on the greater bilby, brush-tailed mulgara, central rock-rat, and Acacia peuce among others. Northern Territory Government ecologists also carried out extensive fauna and flora surveys in the Tanami Desert, northern Simpson Desert, Wakaya Desert, West MacDonnell Ranges, Dulcie Ranges, and Hart’s Range. Other research focussed on the impacts of fire on plant and animal population dynamics and assemblage composition, and the ecology and impacts of introduced species including the feral house cat, rabbit and camel. In the past decade, detailed bioregional scale surveys of the Finke and Burt Plain IBRA regions were undertaken using stratified sampling designs. Current research programs include understanding the impacts of fire on pattern and process in desert systems, and assessing the presence and impact of threatening processes particularly introduced carnivores, invasive weeds, and feral herbivores at a landscape-scale. Threatened species conservation and management continues to be a large focus and, again, much of this work is done in collaboration with a range of stakeholders.

As was the case with the work of the early pioneer ecologists in the 1890s, this research has regularly involved strong collaboration with academic researchers including those at University of New England, Flinders University, Griffith University and University of Queensland. Again, the research has generated worldwide interest (see for example the account in Nature on the southern marsupial-mole in November 2004). 

Much has changed since the ‘early days’ and a considerable proportion of Australia’s universities now have a sizeable research presence in arid Australia with ecological projects featuring heavily and significant research being undertaken. However, very few maintain a permanent presence in the arid zone and government-based ecologists continue to contribute heavily to the growth in understanding and in developing management options for natural systems. The advantages of living and breathing the arid zone on a daily basis rather than it only being a field site are perhaps best appreciated during the current high rainfall period when desert life is profuse and changes are detectable on a daily basis.

The Ecological Society of Australia too has developed a strong arid presence over the past decade and much of the Society’s business over the course of this century has been run out of the arid zone. In 2002 the Executive moved to Alice Springs under the presidency of Craig James and the first Executive Officer, Tanya Howard, was based here. The Society continues to have a significant presence in Alice Springs. It will be fitting if the first research chapter of the Society is one dedicated to Desert Ecology.  

References:

Dennis, C. 2004. A mole in the hand ….. Nature 432: 142-143.

Johnson, C. 2006. Australia’s mammal extinctions: A 50 000 year history. Cambridge      University Press, Cambridge.

Langford, D. (1999). The mala project: experience and hard lessons from 20 years’       work in species recovery (a thumbnail history of the project).  In Biodiversity          and the Re-introduction of Native Fauna at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park:    Proceedings of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cross-Cultural Workshop        on Fauna Re-Introduction.  (Ed. Gillen, J.).  Pp. 100-105.  Bureau of Rural    Sciences, Canberra.