DNA Barcoding to Enhance Conservation of Sunshine Coast Heathlands

Abstract

Conservation priorities and decisions can be informed by understanding diversity patterns and the evolutionary history of ecosystems, and phylogenetic metrics can contribute to this. This project used a range of diversity metrics in concert to examine diversity patterns in the Sunshine Coast heathlands, an ecosystem under intense pressure. The species richness and composition of 80 heathland sites over nine regional ecosystems of heathland on the Sunshine Coast were enhanced with phylogenetic metrics, determined by barcoding 366 heath species of the region. The resulting data were added to an existing phylogeny of regional rainforest species. The diversity metrics for sites and regional ecosystems were compared using univariate and multivariate statistics. The phylogeny from this study, and the low phylogenetic diversity of the heathlands, is consistent with the theory that heath species evolved on the fringes on a wider Australian rainforest flora. Distinctive heathland communities were highlighted, and the existence of geographically scattered, but compositionally similar, phylogenetically even sites points to a possible “refugial environment”, characterised by moisture and instability. This suggests contrasting conservation implications: the protection of distinctive communities but also the management of the dynamic processes in other wet and alluvial “refugial environments”. The potential for more focused conservation priorities is enhanced.