Biodiversity and Climate Change Unit - Science Division
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Our researchers are actively working to develop an understanding of the impacts of climate change, especially the impacts on the potentially 'at risk' species, communities and ecosystems of Western Australia. This understanding provides the basis upon which our management responses to climate change are formulated and undertaken.
The BCCU includes research scientists from DEC's Science Division programs.
It includes strengths in: ecology; modelling; surveys; phytogeography and genetics;
fire science; disease science; taxonomy; monitoring and data management.
What we do:
The role of the Biodiversity and Climate Change Unit is to:
- Co-ordinate and undertake priority research on the effects of climate change on biodiversity in Western Australia.
- Provide sound science-based risk assessment and response planning advice for managing the impacts of unavoidable climate change on Western Australia’s biodiversity.
- Raise climate change adaptation research and analytical capacity in DEC.
Key research questions on climate change:
- What are the most appropriate species, and ecosystem
indicators for climate change, and how should these be
best monitored?
- How will climate change directly affect biodiversity
because of temperature and water availability
thresholds and increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations?
- How will climate change affect existing pressures such
as fire, hydrological regimes and introduced invasive
species, and how will these changes affect biodiversity?
- Will climate change result in new pressures such as new
invasive species or land clearing demands and how could
these new pressures affect biodiversity?
- What role could contraction to refugia play in
maintaining Western Australia’s biodiversity? What
are the important refugia to conserve biodiversity in a
changing climate, and how should these be appropriately
managed and complemented by other management
strategies?
- What species will need to and be able to disperse to new
locations?
- How can ecological connectivity best be improved and
monitored?
- How can Western Australia best invest in translocation?
- What broad ecological and landscape transformation
are likely and how can they be managed? How can such
areas be restored in a changing climate regime?
- How can Western Australia best invest in ex situ
conservation?
- What are the implications of climate change for
conservation reserve system design, managing significant
ecosystems, such as Ramsar sites and nationally
important wetlands, and restoring biodiversity and listed
threatened taxa and ecological communities?
- How can land and fire management affect the carbon
cycle and greenhouse gas emissions more generally?
- How might climate change impacts on vegetation affect
water quality and quantity?
Further resources
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