The importance of ecological processes for terrestial biodiversity conservation in Tasmania - a review

The continental island of Tasmania supports an extraordinary biota featuring ancient communities, high levels of endemism and many species extinct on the mainland Australia. However more that 670 species are currently listed as threatened, maily due to changes in their habitat since European settlement. Although Tasmanian has a relatively hith proportion of its land in reserves with some degree of representation for most vegetation types, habitat protection in some bioregions is very low. In this paper we approach biodiversity assessment in Tasmania by (i)addressing critical, natural ecological processes that underpin and sustain its biodiversity, (ii)assesing the current trends in, and threats to these processes, and (iii) identifying gaps in knowledge that limit the effective management of these processes for conservation. It is hoped that this will contribute a sound basis of ongoing adaptive managment for biodiversity conservation in Tasmania and assist in re-focussing the purpose of the reserve network from representation to persistence of the native biota.