It’s a biodiversity hot spot, a biologist’s paradise and a breeding ground for many new species of invertebrates.
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With these qualities in mind, it’s no wonder conservation biologist and pollination ecologist Dr Geoff Williams OAM chose a move to the Manning.
He knew behind the area’s beauty was not only a huge conservation opportunity, but a place for discovery.
In the 1970s Dr Williams and his wife Thusnelda purchased an old soldier’s settlers block near Lansdowne.
Overrun with weeds, the couple transformed the property into the private, Lorien Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area.
The property is a residence, dedicated wildlife sanctuary and also a scientific research site, particularly for invertebrates.
Dr Williams and Thusnelda manage the entire 40.5 hectares of property to conserve the wildlife and native vegetation.
The refuge is additionally protected in-perpetuity through a voluntary conservation agreement with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, has a property vegetation plan with the NSW Government, and is a registered Wildlife Refuge with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.
“In this region are found many plants and animals known from nowhere else in the world."
- Geoff Williams OAM
Lorien Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area has been the discovery site for many species of invertebrates.
“The area extending from northern New South Wales to southern Queensland is recognised as one of Australia’s biodiversity ‘hot spots’,” Dr Williams explained.
“In this region are found many plants and animals known from nowhere else in the world. One distinctive group of invertebrates that is highly diverse in this region is the freshwater crayfish genus Euastacus.
“These large crayfish are restricted in habitat to cool, highly oxygenated streams.
“Individual species have localised geographical ranges. However, the survival of these animals is threatened by the clearing of surrounding vegetation, changes to water chemistry and temperature, and even changes to light regimes.
“With the on-going fragmentation of regional forests, individual crayfish populations are at risk of extinction.”
Threats to forest environments are a major driver behind the work of Dr Williams.
“People fought strongly for rainforests in the 80s. Many now think the battle is over, and the rainforests are saved,” he said.
“But the threats are still there. Native eucalypt forests and woodland are threatened as well.”
Dr Williams said threats include increased fragmentation of native vegetation due to changing harvesting practises in state forests that resemble clear-felling (or clearcutting) resulting in huge losses of habitat for species with specialised nesting and other survival requirements.
“With re-growth in a logged forest, your general species may return,” he said.
“But the specialist species, many won’t come back.”
Dr Williams said a loss of specialty invertebrates, is a loss to a healthy eco-system.
“Without invertebrates, you do not have a functioning eco-system. Everything plays a role. And it is well to remember that invertebrates represent more than 95 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity.”
Much can be learnt by the specialty invertebrates inhabiting different environments in Australia.
One Manning discovery that has prompted the interest of scientists is the existence of a thrips species, and member of the genus known as Neohoodiella.
“Only one species of Neohoodiella is known from Australia. The genus otherwise represented only by a single different species from New Caledonia,” Dr Williams said.
“Neohoodiella is of interest to those scientists who study the distribution and evolution of plants and animals, continental drift, and plate tectonics, as it provides a further link between the Australian flora and fauna and relative organisms occurring in the islands of the Western Pacific.”
Dr Williams said what makes the Manning so special is its latitude, coupled with altitudinal range, which creates an overlap of plants and animals with temperate, subtropical and tropical evolutionary lineages.
“There is also an ‘autochthonous’ element whose origins appear to be Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland, plus a distinct ‘Gondwana’ element that exhibits current and fossil distribution patterns restricted to land masses of the Southern Hemisphere,” he said.
“The Manning is one of the major subregions within this zone. “Numerous rainforest plants and animals reach their northern-most or southern-most points of distribution in the Manning”.
“Within a two hour drive you can go from coastal littoral rainforest to the cool temperate rainforests of the Barrington Tops - making it a biologist's ‘paradise’.