VICTORIA'S LIVING ESTATE

Zoos, seed banks, botanical living collections kept by museums, botanic gardens and libraries can be seen as living collections. But collections are not just about dried, frozen and preserved specimens kept in museums.

Victoria also has an estate of reserves, parks covering more than four million hectares, or about 18 per cent, of Victoria’s land and 12 % of the states coastal waters. This estate is managed by Parks Victoria on behalf of all Victorians in partnership with Traditional Owners and a range of community, government and non-government organisations.

In climate and geology Victoria’s landscapes range from coastal heathlands, alpine ranges, wetland systems, stony rise woodlands, volcanic grasslands, desert mallee fringes, to wet rainforests and more. Under the water stunning kelp forests, complex rocky reef systems, extensive seagrass meadows, and colourful sponge gardens, are found within the state’s extensive marine protected area system.

Curation notes by: Parks Victoria with Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

Victoria’s terrestrial parks are home to more than 4300 native plants and 1000 native animals, many of which are uniquely adapted to their specific habitat and are found nowhere else in the world.

Managed continuously by Indigenous custodians for countless generations stretching back tens of thousands of years, the earliest of Victoria’s natural reserves after European colonisation were established in the late 1800s, places like Tower Hill in Warrnambool and Wilson’s Promontory in South Gippsland.

Victoria’s network of marine parks and marine sanctuaries were first established in 2002 and make up some of the state’s most recent protected areas.

In all Victoria has upwards of 3200 parks and reserves each of which can be seen as living museums containing a range of species that represent millions and millions of years of evolution.

These living libraries of biodiversity are barometers for the impacts of climate change. There are already many signs telling us that things are changing.

Curation notes by: Parks Victoria with Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

BEWARE REEF MARINE SANCTUARY

Some of the biggest impacts of our changing climate are happening not on land, but occurring underwater.

Global climate models predict that the greatest warming in the Southern Hemisphere oceans will be in the Tasman Sea, the stretch of water that reaches from New South Wales to Tasmania and across to New Zealand, with significant impacts for south eastern Australia.

In Victoria the symptoms of climate change are already happening on scale along the east coast of Victoria in places like Beware Reef Marine Sanctuary.

Curation notes by: Mark Rodrigue, Program Leader Marine and Coasts Parks Victoria and Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

Beware Reef Marine Sanctuary is a spectacular marine protected area that sits offshore of Cape Conran near Orbost in East Gippsland.

Part of Gunaikurnai country, Beware Reef itself is a partially exposed granite reef home to abundant marine life.

Underwater the reef has a wide range of local marine species which, because of its location in eastern Victoria, are a mix of Victorian and east Australian species more typically found further north. With more than 100 species of fish recorded by local volunteers and a wide range of invertebrates it is an outstanding location for diving.

Large brown habitat forming seaweeds known as kelps grow on the reefs. Like trees on land they form underwater ‘kelp forests’, rich habitats for smaller plants and a wide range of animals.

Curation notes by: Mark Rodrigue, Program Leader Marine and Coasts Parks Victoria and Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

Beware Reef is facing significant challenges because of our rapidly warming oceans.

With climate change warmer sea temperatures and a strengthening of the East Australian Current (EAC) are extending the range of a number species that have previously been found further north, particularly in NSW. These species survive better with small increases in water temperatures.

The new arrivals include a large herbivore that looks like a fuzzy black ball of spikes, the Black Spined Sea Urchin (Centrostephanus rogersii), which lives on underwater reefs and feed on marine algae, including the kelp.

The invasive urchins are now eating their way through the native kelp forests that cover many of the shallow reefs creating ‘urchin barrens’ that are stripped of all vegetation. Kelp forest clearing by urchins has serious ramifications for the diverse marine species found within the park.

Curation notes by: Mark Rodrigue, Program Leader Marine and Coasts Parks Victoria and Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

Friends of Beware Reef is a community volunteer group of SCUBA divers that visit and monitor the Marine Sanctuary.

They now regularly go diving to hand-cull the Black Spined Sea Urchin from the reefs.

The urchins were first reported after these citizen scientists had observed losses of kelp forest as part of their regular visits and surveys in the park. By carefully observing and recording changes in the species present in the park the divers became very concerned that the urchins were causing loss of the amazing collection of marine life present.

Working in partnership with Parks Victoria, the divers have been trialing different options for controlling this invasion, and now an extensive program to control the numbers of urchins in the park and allow recovery of the kelp forests is underway. Ongoing monitoring by the citizen scientists hopes to demonstrate an effective approach to meeting this challenge in protecting some of Victoria’s special places from the effects of climate change.

Curation notes by: Mark Rodrigue, Program Leader Marine and Coasts Parks Victoria and Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

ALPINE NATIONAL PARK

Australia’s alpine environments are a very rare landscape in the driest continent on earth.

The alpine and sub-alpine zones collectively account for less than 0.3% of Australia’s total land area.

The impacts of changing climate are seen in Australian alpine environments as species and ecological communities adapted to very cold conditions change in response to warming temperatures, earlier snow melts and reduced rainfall.

The Alpine National Park stretches from central Gippsland all the way to the New South Wales border where it adjoins Kosciuszko National Park. Within the park are some of Australia’s most unique alpine landscapes, including mountain peaks, alpine wetlands and winter snow plains. While many areas of Victoria’s alpine national parks are remote, other places are readily accessible and popular with visitors. The Victorian alps have been well studied by research scientists for many decades. An abundance of scientific knowledge now assists managers to better understand the biodiversity of the region and the changes occuring.

A vast area, the Alpine National Park forms part of Bidawal, Dhudhuroa, Gunaikurnai, Jaithmathang, Taungurong and Nindi-Ngudjam Ngarigu Monero Traditional Country. Mount Buffalo, Baw Baw, and the Snowy River national parks are also within these traditional owner territories. These parks also include rare alpine and sub-alpine zones.

Curation notes by: Parks Victoria with Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

The park supports an incredible diversity of animals.

Threatened species include the Smoky Mouse, Broad-toothed Rat, Alpine Spiny-crayfish, Spotted Tree Frog, She-oak Skink and the rare Mountain Pygmy-possum (pictured).

The Mountain Pygmy-possum lives on isolated rocky slopes covered with heathland, a specialised habitat found only in a few places within the Victorian and New South Wales Alps. It is the world's only exclusively alpine marsupial and the only marsupial that stores food to last throughout the winter. It feeds on Bogong Moths which migrate to the Bogong and Dargo high plains and peaks between September and April.

Mountain Pygmy-possums are at risk of extinction because of climate change. Because it is getting warmer and the snow is melting earlier, the Mountain Pygmy-possums are emerging from hibernation before the Bogong Moths come en masse in the high country. The possum risks starvation because it has become out of sync with its critical food source. Breeding cycles can then also be impacted. Climate change is also causing problems of synchronicity in other alpine species where flowering times and nesting and emergence times are changing because the climate is changing.

Curation notes by: Parks Victoria with Lucinda Horrocks, Wind & Sky Productions.

In 2013, Museums Victoria, Parks Victoria and 4WD (Four Wheel Drive) Victoria undertook a two week intensive survey called a ‘Bioscan’ of the Victorian Alpine National Park.

The comprehensive wildlife, geology and palaeontology survey enabled researchers to better understand the state of the alpine environment which is increasingly vulnerable in this era of human-induced climate change.

SEEDBANK & RARE & THREATENED SPECIES COLLECTION

Life on Earth is critically dependant on plants. They feed us and all the other animals who share the planet.

They provide us with medicine, fibre and timber, they maintain soil fertility and they oxygenate the air we breathe. But plant diversity is at a crossroads. Land degradation, urban expansion and climate change threaten plant species and whole plant communities, and ultimately ourselves.

While the plight of many of our threatened species and landscapes is becoming better understood, even if we could halt the threatening processes immediately, species would continue to decline. For many species the situation is critical and they seem doomed to extinction. There needs to be urgent action and seed banks are a relatively easy, low-cost way to do this.

The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria maintains a seedbank of viable seeds kept in storage for the future. It is part of a global program to conserve genetically diverse seed from 25 per cent of the world's approximately 240,000 species of seed-bearing plants by the year 2020. These are held as duplicate collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in the United Kingdom and in the country of origin.

Curation notes by: Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

The Victorian Conservation Seedbank aims to collect high-quality seeds from native plant species within Victoria for long-term storage, research and restoration programs.

The project mainly targets seed from rare or threatened species or those species found only in Victoria (endemics).

Of the approximately 3,500 native species in Victoria, nearly 800 are considered to be threatened; that is, they are in danger of becoming extinct in the next few decades. Obviously the risk for some species is higher than for others. Those from the coldest environments on high mountain summits are likely to lose the little habitat they have to the effects of greenhouse gas-induced climate change. Similar threats face plants in areas prone to increasing salination or to those restricted to the outskirts of expanding towns or cities.

Victorian seeds are collected and then sent to the laboratory to be cleaned, dried, counted and tested for viability. Each seed lot is split into two equal parts and sealed in air-tight foil bags. The bags are then put in long-term storage in a freezer at -20ºC, one in the UK and one at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. It has been shown that under these conditions most seeds can be stored for a century or more. The seeds will be accessed every five years for further germination trials or when needed to produce plants for restoration projects to bolster wild populations.

Curation notes by: Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

The Seedbank collects seeds from all over Victoria – from the Mallee area, where plants flower and fruit first, to the Alps where they generally flower and fruit much later.

The main collecting season is about six months long, starting in the warmer drier regions and ending in the highest parts of the Alps. For those plants that hold their seeds in woody capsules for many years – such as species of Eucalyptus, Banksia, Hakea and Callistemon – we can collect seed at any time of year.

Germination trials are conducted on all seed lots with the aim of achieving greater than 75 per cent germination for all species. Seedlings produced in our germination trials have been used for offsite conservation in the Melbourne Gardens' Rare and Threatened Species Collection.

Germination trials are conducted on all seed lots with the aim of achieving greater than 75 per cent germination for all species and seedlings have been used for offsite conservation in the Melbourne Gardens Rare and Threatened Species Collection.

Many Australian plants produce seeds that have complex dormancy systems that require cues from the environment before they will germinate. Typically, these cues follow seasonal climatic extremes, or bushfires or floods, but may also be simple weathering of hard seed coats, or subtle combinations of these factors. Without an understanding of these requirements, we cannot reasonably hope to reinstate lost or seriously depleted wild plant populations. Research into these processes is currently taking place in seed banks around the world.

Curation notes by: Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.