R E S E A R C H E D U C A T I O N O U T R E A C H

Samford Ecological Research Facility

ANNUAL REPORT 2012

Phone +61 7 3138 9500 | Fax +61 7 3138 4438 | Email ife@qut.edu.au Mail GPO Box 2434, Brisbane QLD 4001

www.serf.qut.edu.au | www.qut.edu.au/ife

© QUT 2013 19723

ifeInstitute for Future Environments

Samford Ecological Research Facility Annual Report 2012Samford Ecological Research Facility Annual Report 2012

The Samford Ecological Research Facility (SERF) is a 51-hectare property in the Samford Valley. The property was generously bequeathed to QUT by renowned Queensland entomologist Dr Elizabeth Nesta Marks AO. Seventy percent of SERF is covered with vegetation providing refuge to native plants and animals under increasing pressure from urbanisation. The vegetation is protected and classified under the Vegetation Management Act 1999.

SERF is managed by the QUT Institute for Future Environments. It is used for research, teaching and learning programs about many subjects, including water

From the SERF manager ........................................................................... 2

Research ................................................................................................... 4

Education .................................................................................................. 6

Outreach .................................................................................................... 8

Operations and management ................................................................... 10

Dr E. N. Marks Sustainability Award winner ............................................. 12

Weather at SERF ....................................................................................... 12

quality, groundwater systems, soil mapping, air quality, micro-biology, invertebrate and vertebrate biology, plant biology, ecology, experimental design, population management, ecosystem ecology, long term ecological research, geographic information systems, vegetation mapping, sustainable building techniques and ecosystem monitoring.

SERF is also part of the Australian Supersite Network, a facility of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network (TERN), a nationwide Australian Government program of systematic, automated monitoring of ecosystems.

About the Samford Ecological Research Facility

From the SERF Manager by Michelle Gane

Dear Friends and Neighbours,

I am excited to share with you some of the highlights of the past year at the Samford Ecological Research (SERF).

In May the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Joe Ludwig, visited SERF to announce the funding of 17 projects on the efficient use of nitrous oxide in Australian agriculture. QUT researchers Professor Peter Grace, Dr Clemens Scheer and Dr David Rowlings received $3 million of this funding for their greenhouse gas emissions research. The Minister’s visit was a great opportunity to showcase SERF and demonstrate the equipment and techniques used in this research and the growing importance of research sites for environmental monitoring.

SERF continues to be part of the growing Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) and the Australian Supersite Network. Scientists from the Far North Queensland Supersite visited SERF in August and assisted us in undertaking a comprehensive one-hectare vegetation survey. Every tree was counted, measured and identified. One week and 692 trees later, the survey was completed. A special mention must go to Matt Bradford and Andrew Moore from CSIRO for their great work.

TERN Director Tim Clancy and the team from the Brisbane TERN office visited SERF on a hot summer day in December. Professor Peter Grace and I gave them a tour of the facility and a closer look at the technical workings of a supersite.

Associate Professor Caroline Hauxwell secured a Capacity Building Research Equipment Grant from QUT for the construction of three insect screenhouses at SERF. After delays due to wet weather, the screenhouses were built in late November. The new infrastructure will greatly increase QUT’s capacity to undertake research into insect behaviour and insect–plant interactions.

To ensure all-weather access and a safe passage to the insect screen houses and other critical research infrastructure, we built a culvert over one of the property’s notorious wet gullies. This has allowed us to redirect foot and vehicle traffic on the property and reduced land degradation significantly – not to mention reducing the risk of our team getting caught in the mud. Once the culvert was completed, Marcus Yates, the SERF Site Technician, undertook some revegetation and erosion control along some of the gullies.

You might have noticed a new institute logo on our Annual Report. The Institute for Sustainable Resources (ISR) and the Information Security Institute were absorbed into the Institute for Future Environments (IFE). The focus of the IFE is to examine how our natural, built and virtual environments interact, change and converge and to find ways to make them more sustainable, secure and resilient.

The IFE is based at QUT’s Gardens Point Campus in the new Science and Engineering Centre, a world-leading research, education and community hub and a model of sustainable building design. With seven interdisciplinary research themes, the IFE opens up even more opportunities for ecological research projects at SERF.

A new institute and new building also means new faces. Joining the SERF and IFE team is Dr Juan Cooper, Distributed Sites and Infrastructure Manager, whose expertise and knowledge will ensure the growing research and educational potential of SERF and the IFE are recognised and utilised across QUT.

Dr Cooper previously worked at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) and the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute in senior management roles with responsibilities for infrastructure, facilities,

Samford Ecological Research Facility Annual Report 2012

safety and scientific services. He has extensive experience in research laboratory design and commissioning, having been involved in several major building infrastructure projects, including the QIMR Clive Berghofer Cancer Research Centre and Smart State Medical Research Centre, as well as the Translational Research Institute at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Finally, if you are like me and check the weather reports daily, you will have noticed the new easy-to-read display for the SERF weather monitor on our website www.serf.qut.edu.au.

On behalf of the SERF team, thank you for being part of another great year at SERF. We are looking forward to another big year in 2013.

Your neighbour and SERF Manager MICHELLE GANE

Research by SERF Director Professor Peter Grace

Flux station

A flux station measures the exchange of energy, carbon and water between the atmosphere and an ecosystem. At SERF there is an eddy covariance flux station on the grassland at the southwest end of the property. It measures variables such as greenhouse gas concentrations, pressure, temperature and humidity based on the flow of air in the atmospheric boundary layer. These variables are constantly logged to provide valuable insights into the processes controlling carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour exchange.

The amount of soil respiration (CO2 and water flux caused by soil organisms) differs among ecosystems and is controlled by several factors. As Figure 1 shows, the CO2 uptake on the SERF grassland correlates more with temperature than with the amount of rain during the year, whereas the water (H2O) flux correlates more with rain than temperature. PhD student Lona Van Delden is investigating whether well-managed pastures can act as CO2 sinks and mitigate against climate change.

The SERF flux station provides background information for a variety of long term ecological research projects, verifies global climate models, provides validation material for maps, and improves ecological monitoring, assessment and land management.

Figure 1: Environmental parameters (temperature, rain, CO2 flux and H20 flux) measured by the SERF flux station in 2012.

Vegetation survey

Between 6 and 11 August, CSIRO scientists Matt Bradford and Andrew Ford carried out a comprehensive one-hectare vegetation survey at SERF. They identified, measured and mapped all trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) of greater than 10cm—a total of 692 trees. Not surprisingly, the most abundant tree was Lophostemon suaveloens (brush box), of which there were 412. The second most abundant tree was Melaleuca salicina (previously identified as Callistemon salignis, willow bottlebrush).

A one-hectare vegetation survey has been undertaken at all the supersites in the Australian Supersite Network using the same monitoring protocol. The data will be used to describe each ecosystem, to detect future changes in them, and to help researchers answer questions relating to all the supersites.

Water quality monitoring

Throughout 2012, as part of a long term research project, we continued to monitor the water quality of Samford Creek at two locations—the Pumpshed at SERF and a site downstream of Samford Village. Every 10 minutes physico-chemical data, such as water temperature, pH, specific conductance, turbidity and dissolved oxygen, as well as creek flow, are automatically collected and transferred to a

Tem

pera

ture

(˚C

) R

ain

(cm

)

JAN FEB

Temp Rain CO2 Flux H2O Flux

40

30

20

10

0

5

15

25

35

45

MAR APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

0.06

0.02

-0.02

-0.06

-0.14

-0.08

-0.10

-0.12

-0.04

0

0.04

0.08

CO

2 Fl

ux (

mg

m -2

s -1

) H

2O F

lux

(kg

m -2

s -1

)

RESEARCH ACTIVITY AT SERF IN 2012

Project title Lead QUT researcher/s Duration Faculty or Institute

National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), Terrestrial Ecosystem Network (TERN), South-East Queensland Peri-urban Grassland Supersite

Professor Peter Grace, Dr David Rowlings and Michelle Gane

IFE, SEF

• Carbon dioxide and water flux (OzFlux Station) Professor Peter Grace, Dr David Rowlings ongoing IFE

• Automated greenhouse gas measurement system

Dr David Rowlings and Dr Clemens Scheer ongoing IFE

• Water quality, flow and nutrient dynamics Dr Martin Labadz and Dr David Rowlings ongoing SEF, IFE

• Weather monitoring Dr David Rowlings ongoing IFE

• Soil water chemistry Dr David Rowlings ongoing IFE

• Soil water (by depth) Dr David Rowlings ongoing IFE

• Acoustic sensors Jason Wimmer ongoing IFE

• Net primary production (NPP) Dr David Rowlings ongoing IFE

• TERN data visualsiation Marco Fahmi January 2012 – ongoing IFE

Ant functional groups as bio-indicators of anthropogenic disturbance: Issues with interpreting predictability at the local scale

Jaye Newman January 2010 – December 2012

SEF

Acoustic sensing: Towards a framework for assessing ecological health

Jason Wimmer and Dr Ian Williamson 2008–2012 IFE, SEF

Acoustic sensing (vacation research experience scholarship)

Dr Susan Fuller, Professor Paul Roe, Dr Ian Williamson and Isabelle de Haviland

November 2012 – February 2013

SEF

Vegetation survey Michelle Gane August 2012 IFE

IFE – Institute for Future Environments; SEF – Science and Engineering Faculty

data logger at each sampling site. As these loggers are connected to the Internet, we can download the data remotely and process them in almost real time at QUT.

We also take manual water samples to get an idea of how much nitrogen and phosphorus is leaving the catchment and how that relates to the different uses of land in the catchment. Researcher Dr Martin Labadz has reported some interesting nutrient dynamics. Generally, total nitrogen concentrations in the creek increase with rainfall and are higher at the Samford Village site than the SERF Pumpshed site.

We installed pressure transducers in mid 2012 at the Samford Village site. These devices sit in metal tubes and are attached to the creek bottom. They measure the

water pressure above them. Pressure is later converted to water level and then flow, based on a level–discharge relation curve and manual water-level readings from installed gauge boards.

In late 2012, we installed ISCO automated water samplers (Isco Teledyne, USA) at the Pumpshed and Samford Village sites to take samples of creek water after heavy rain. The samplers are connected to the automated data loggers, which enables us to capture high-frequency nutrient dynamics during high flow periods.

In the long term, water quality measurements and the high frequency data will allow us to examine the effects of urbanisation on the aquatic ecosystem in the Samford Valley, as the area’s population increases.

Education by Dr Ian Williamson

QUT ecology students had another busy year at SERF in 2012. In mid March a group of third year students conducted a four day fauna survey to investigate the quality (naturalness), diversity and conservation significance of the site. A highlight of the trip was confirming the presence of two bandicoot species at SERF (the long-nosed bandicoot and the northern brown bandicoot).

In mid Autumn, as they had for the previous four years, second year students assessed the amount of digging by bandicoots in relation to the distance from roads and forest edges, and vegetation structure. Bandicoots seem to be more active away from the edges. Second year students also conducted a shorter vertebrate survey later in October.

Third year students completed several short projects. One was a standard conservation ecology experiment about nest predation in small forest patches: fake nests

and plasticine eggs are placed at the edge and the middle of a forest, and the peck rate on the eggs is used as an index of predation pressure. The SERF forest is a relatively small patch and there was no apparent difference between attack rates in edge versus middle positions. Motion-sensing cameras detected a few nest predators—currawongs, crows and an interesting culprit, the lewin’s honeyeater.

Another third year project was a training exercise in which students formulated accurate methods of assessing weed distribution and density. Various other short projects were conducted by small teams of third year students in the Ecological Systems unit. Some of these teams looked at factors influencing seed predation and soil respiration monitoring techniques.

Samford Ecological Research Facility Annual Report 2012

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AT SERF IN 2012

Class field trips Course unit Course name Coordinator Faculty

Students mapped hollow trees SCB500 Projects Dr Ian Williamson SEF

Students conducted small mammal trappings, bird surveys, nocturnal spotlighting and pitfall trapping

NQB502 Field Methods in National Resource Sciences

Dr Susan Fuller SEF

Practical exercise in population management, making transects and counting milkweed

NQB523 Population Management Dr Grant Hamilton SEF

Practical demonstration of arthropod collections

NQB322 Invertebrate Biology Mark Schutze SEF

Practical exercise in ecology – students examined the distribution of bandicoot diggings in relation to distance from roads and vegetation type

NQB321 Ecology Dr Ian Williamson SEF

Biocondition field survey NQB502 Field Methods in National Resource Sciences

Dr Susan Fuller SEF

Students collected and surveyed site information to input into a hypothetical design of a residential development

ENB40 School of Urban Design Associate Professor Les Dawes

SEF

Practical exercise in soil classification NQB406 Soil and the Environment Dr David Rowlings SEF

SEF – Science and Engineering Faculty

Outreach by Annabelle Ramsay

SERF is not just a facility for QUT academics and students. Every year it is visited by a broad range of people, including researchers from other institutions, politicians and public servants. We also hold public information sessions to allow Samford residents and the broader community to learn about the work being done at SERF.

Research funding announcement by federal minister

In May 2012, Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator Joe Ludwig came to SERF to announce $14 million of funding for a series of national research projects coordinated by the Institute for Future Environments. Seventeen projects by a network of 12 universities, government agencies and research institutions will examine the efficient use of nitrogen in agriculture. QUT received $3 million of the funding for three of the projects, one of which is to coordinate the other 16 projects.

All the projects focus on reducing the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide produced by the agricultural use of nitrogen fertilisers, while maintaining crop and pasture production levels. The projects are producing high-quality data and knowledge to help policymakers and farmers to improve nitrogen efficiency and reduce nitrous oxide emissions.

The photo on the next page shows Senator Ludwig and SERF Director Professor Peter Grace inspecting one of the automated greenhouse chambers at SERF. QUT has been part of an international consortium that has developed an automated greenhouse chamber operating in a network of research centres around the country to measure nitrous oxide, methane and carbon dioxide emissions in real time. Senator Ludwig had the opportunity to see the chambers operating in the forest and grassland areas at SERF and learn how the real-time emissions data can be used to improve farm management practices.

Supersite meetings and tours

On 30 July, SERF hosted a South-east Queensland Peri-urban Supersite Network meeting. Representatives from all three nodes (Samford Valley, Karawatha Forest and the Logan-Albert catchment) attended, including Dr Andy Steven and Dr Geoff Carlin from CSIRO, Professor Jean-Marc Hero and Dr Greg Lollback from Griffith University, and Dr Mirko Karan, the coordinator of the Australian Supersite Network.

The SEQ Supersite Network is a facility under the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), which was established by the Federal Government to facilitate enhanced ecosystem research through systematic, coordinated national data collection. TERN Director Dr Tim Clancy and staff from TERN’s Brisbane office visited SERF on 14 December to take an in-depth look at how our supersite works.

Cornell University researchers

From September 2012 to January 2013, as they did a year earlier, researchers from Cornell University, New York, stayed at the SERF barracks to study the mating behaviour of the Australia red-backed fairy-wren, a small grassland bird very common throughout south-east Queensland. The team studied fairy-wrens both at SERF and at a site on the eastern shore of nearby Lake Samsonvale.

Here is Cornell PhD student Dan Baldassarre’s summary of their findings:

First, we discovered that this population of red-backed fairy-wrens, like others we have studied in the past, exhibits a high rate of extra-pair mating: up to 70 per cent of the nestlings that were born in the population were sired by males outside of the pair bond. In other words, there is a lot of infidelity among these birds.

Samford Ecological Research Facility Annual Report 2012

Second, we found that the colour of the feathers of males significantly affected their mating success. By changing the normally bright orange feathers of some males to red, we were able to increase their mating success dramatically, as these males were more successful at mating with females outside of their pair bond.

Finally, we conducted an experiment where we presented territorial males with decoy males of various colours, paired with recordings of different song types, and video-taped their responses. The males did not seem to care about the colour of rival males, but they adjusted their level of aggression significantly in response to different song types.

We also learned valuable things about how red-backed fairy-wrens interact with the environment, the types of habitat they prefer, and the precise time of year at which they breed. This information will inform land management decisions – about prescribed burns for example—and help ensure the survival of healthy bird populations in the area.

Public Information Session

Seventy-five people attended the SERF Annual Information Session on 14 June. We introduced the community to the new SERF Field Technician, Marcus Yates, who is a Samford local. Dr David Rowlings gave a detailed overview of the South-east Queensland Peri-urban Supersite research program and the array of automated environmental monitoring equipment used in this program—including the eddy co-variance flux station, the greenhouse gas measurement system, soil moisture sensors and the water quality and gauging stations in the Samford Creek. Dr Ian Williamson talked about undergraduate field trips to SERF, while PhD student Jason Wimmer talked about his acoustic sensor research work and played bird noises recorded by the acoustic sensors at SERF.

Visit the SERF website at www.serf.qut.edu.au for the latest information on events at SERF. The SERF team is always happy to hear from members of our local community, so please contact us at any time.

It was another wet start to the year, with 350 mm of rain falling in January (the highest monthly total for the year). This gave the SERF Field Technician Marcus Yates a great opportunity to start some revegetation and gully bank stabilisation work. Marcus planted a selection of local species such as Acacia disparrima (hickory wattle), Acacia fimbriata (Brisbane wattle), Alphitonia excelsa (soap tree), Eucalyptus crebra (ironbark), Melaleuca bracteata (black tea tree) and Lomandra hystrix (creek mat rush).

A concrete crossing was built over one of the major gullies at the southwest end of the property. Prior to this, the only way to reach the grassland area with the flux station was to cross the permanently wet gully. The crossing (combined with the recycled road material from the electricity upgrade last year) gives people safe access to this end of the property in any weather. Vehicles can also take this new route, which reduces land degradation in the low-lying damp areas. The site where the crossing was constructed was a favourite watering route for Dr E.N. Marks’ horses.

The wet start to the year delayed the construction of the insect screenhouses, but in November the three 14 metre long and 7 metre wide screenhouses were completed. The screenhouses (shown on the next page) were funded by a Capacity Building Research Equipment Grant that Associate Professor Caroline Hauxwell received from QUT. The screenhouses will significantly enhance research opportunities for QUT in the areas of insect behaviour, insect–plant interactions and insect dispersion. The screenhouses sit on a gravel base and are not visible from the road or any of our neighbouring properties. They are covered with a white insect screen and are 4 metres high in the centre. There is a removable centre partition to allow for smaller cages.

A second bathroom with disability access was built in the barracks. The new bathroom also houses the laundry and both are connected to the composting wastewater system.

At the time of writing, the capital works program for 2013 is limited to replacing the frontage of the property along Camp Mountain Road and Upper Camp Mountain Road and building a walkway over a permanently wet gully.

Operations and management by Michelle Gane

Samford Ecological Research Facility Annual Report 2012

Expense summary 2012 expenditure ($)

Research support 70 731

Land management 30 993

Equipment 21 852

IT 47 731

Operations 6379

Administration 31 923

Community outreach 4599

Total 214 208

Expense Summary

Equipment 10%

IT 22%

Land management 15%

Research support 33%

Community outreach 2%

Administration 15%

Operations 3%

Corporate goals for 2013

• Continue the long term ecological research monitoring program as part of the TERN Supersite and OzFlux network.

• Review SERF’s workplace health and safety and risk management procedures, to ensure that appropriate measures are in place and that we are managing our impact on this wonderful asset. The IFE will be conducting similar reviews of all its distributed research sites.

• Maintain a high level of community interaction to ensure the sustainable development of the Samford Valley.

Dr E.N. Marks Sustainability Award winner

Since 2008, the Institute for Future Environments (formerly the Institute for Sustainable Resources) has presented an annual award to recognise outstanding contributions to sustainability made by QUT students working at SERF.

The 2012 Dr E.N. Marks Sustainability Award was won by Jaye Newman, a third year Bachelor of Applied Science student majoring in Ecology. Jaye had participated in a number of undergraduate activities at SERF from 2010 to 2012.

Most significantly, Jaye did a short research project on “Ant functional groups as bio-indicators of anthropogenic disturbance: Issues with interpreting predictability at the local scale”. Bio-indicators are used to measure the stress on an ecosystem and to provide a surrogate measure of overall species diversity. Ants are used in Australia as bio-indicators of habitat disturbance and stress. A functional group scheme can provide details of disturbance based on a suite of behaviours and functioning guilds of ant communities. This information is used in environmental impact assessments for mining companies and in early warning systems for habitat degradation.

Year Annual rainfall* Lowest temperature

Highest temperature

2012 1,420 mm 2.1 °C 39.6 °C

2011 1,219 mm 2.8 °C 36.6 °C

2010 1,343 mm 2.1 °C 37.8 °C

Jaye assessed functional ant groups within three habitats of different levels of disturbance at SERF—forest, edge and pasture. Jaye found no significant difference between the ant communities at the reference site (forest) and the disturbed sites. This result could be because of spatial scale analysis issues and it could have implications for simplified surveys for rehabilitation assessment in mining and for conservation strategies in general.

Jaye’s student project was an important contribution to the SERF knowledge base and the IFE was very pleased to present her with the 2012 Dr E.N. Marks Sustainability Award.

This table shows the annual statistics from the SERF weather monitor. The current data from the SERF weather monitor is displayed on the SERF website www.serf.qut.edu.au.

Weather at SERF

*Long-term average = 1,108 mm (CSIRO Samford – closed 2003)

R E S E A R C H E D U C A T I O N O U T R E A C H

Samford Ecological Research Facility

ANNUAL REPORT 2012

Phone +61 7 3138 9500 | Fax +61 7 3138 4438 | Email ife@qut.edu.au Mail GPO Box 2434, Brisbane QLD 4001

www.serf.qut.edu.au | www.qut.edu.au/ife

© QUT 2013 19723

ifeInstitute for Future Environments