Journal article
Climate change expected to drive habitat loss for two key herbivore species in an alpine environment
M Parida, AA Hoffmann, MP Hill
Journal of Biogeography | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1111/jbi.12490
Abstract
Aim: Our first aim was to determine the environmental factors associated with two native Australian Lepidoptera species, Lomera caespitosae and Oncopera alpina, key herbivores of alpine and subalpine Poa grasses. Both species have been associated with areas of extensive grass death in Australian alpine regions, possibly affecting vegetation succession and recovery. Our second aim was to generate and evaluate potential distributional changes for both these moths and their host plants under scenarios of climate change. Location: Alpine regions in south-eastern Australia. Methods: We surveyed alpine regions in south-eastern Australia to compile presence-absence datasets for both moth species. W..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The authors thank Jane Elith for providing climate data. Henrik Wahren, Warwick Papst, Michael Nash, Karen Stott, Elaine Thomas, Annie Leschen, James Shannon, Roger Good, Ken Green and Keith McDougall provided information on grass-damage sightings in Victoria and New South Wales. We appreciate and acknowledge field assistance from Michael Nash and Citra Jewson Brown in recording moth presence-absence data in New South Wales. Thanks also to Vincent Q. Vu for making accessible his ggbiplot functions used to create Fig. 3b. No conflict of interest exists among the authors. The work was supported by funding through the Long Term Ecological Research Network and the Linkage/Laureate Fellowship programmes of the Australian Research Council, with the Victorian Department of the Environment and Primary Industry and Parks Victoria as partners.