Workshop 2008, Charlottes Pass, Australian Alps, Australia

The fourth MIREN workshop was held at Charlottes Pass, a small ski resort at treeline in Kosciuszko National Park (a Mountain Biosphere Reserve in the Australian Alps) between the 1st and 5th of December. The meeting was funded by the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Environment and Climate Change and the Australian Alps National Parks program.

Prior to the meeting, attendees were most fortunate to be shown the endangered Mountain Pygmy Possum by Dr Linda Broome, who has studied this small marsupial since 1986. The possum, which is restricted to the alpine zone, is threatened by feral cats and climate change.

The meeting included much discussion of current MIREN programs (conceptual framework, concurrent core area surveys, and database development) and future programs (demographic experiments, outreach and studies on impacts). An open session brought MIREN members into contact with Park managers resulting in lively discussion about prioritization of management actions for invasive species. The presentations for the open session included:

• Richard Groves (CSIRO) “Mountain ecology, land use and weeds in Australia”
• Christoph Kueffer & Curtis C. Daehler  (University of Hawaii) “Prioritisation of environmental weeds for management action – Concepts and tools”
• Tim Greville (Summit Ranger, Kosciuszko National Park) “Current prioritisation for weed control in Kosciuszko National Park”
• Ann Mount & Catherine Pickering (Griffith University) “Clothing as a seed vector: quantifying seed collected on shoes, socks, laces and trousers when walking in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia”
• Keith McDougall (Department of Environment and Climate Change) & Neville Walsh (National Herbarium of Victoria) “Patterns of plant invasion in the Australian Alps”
• Silvia Fernandez Lugo (University of La Laguna, Tenerife) “Homogenization of plant communities in Tenerife through altitudinal gradients due to exotics”
• Celia Garcia Dominguez (University of La Laguna, Tenerife) “Analysis of regeneration of coexisting introduced versus native species of pine in the Canary Islands”
• Jake Alexander (ETH Zurich) "Going up in the world: has Lactuca serriola broadened its ecological horizons”
• Sylvia Haider (Technische Universität München) “Climate dismatching: do mediterranean species have a better life in temperate Switzerland than temperate species on Tenerife?"
• Blaise Petitpierre (University of Lausanne) “Ecological and phylogeographical approach of a biological invasion: Prunus serotina, a case study”

A field trip to Kiandra, an old gold mining settlement in Kosciuszko National Park, provided everyone with an insight into how garden plants such as daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus), comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and lupins (Lupinus polyphyllus) can become naturalized in mountain environments. The non-native flora of Kiandra is diverse but managed for its cultural heritage values, a potential conflict with nature conservation values. At Kiandra, MIREN people met with staff from the state of Victoria involved with management of Hawkweeds and Dr. Peter Espie, who has worked with these species in New Zealand. The group then visited a site invaded by one hawkweed species (Hieracium aurantiacum). Hawkweeds, although only recently discovered in the Australian high country, have spread into natural vegetation at an alarming rate. The remainder of the meeting focused on sharing ideas about the research and management that will be required to eradicate Hawkweeds in the Australian Alps. Peter Espie gave a chilling account of how New Zealand has lost the battle against these invaders.

The MIREN group left the meeting with well-defined objectives for completing current projects in the coming year and embarking on new programs thereafter. A highlight of 2009 for MIREN will be its hosting of a session at the Ecology and Management of Alien Plant Invasions (EMAPi) 10 to be held at Stellenbosch, South Africa in August.

Mountain Pygmy Possum (Burramys parvus)