Development of hazard site surveillance programs for forest invasive species: A case study from Brisbane, Australia

Hazard site surveillance is a system for post-border detection of new pest incursions, targeting sites that are considered potentially at high risk of such introductions. Globalisation, increased volumes of containerised freight and competition for space at domestic ports means that goods are increasingly being first opened at premises some distance from the port of entry, thus dispersing risk away from the main inspection point. Hazard site surveillance acts as a backstop to border control to ensure that new incursions are detected sufficiently early to allow the full range of management options, including eradication and containment, to be considered. This is particularly important for some of the more cryptic forest pests whose presence in a forest often is not discovered until populations are already high and the pest is well established. General requirements for a hazard site surveillance program are discussed using a program developed in Brisbane, Australia, in 2006 as a case study. Some early results from the Brisbane program are presented. In total 67 species and 5757 individuals of wood-boring beetles have been trapped and identified during the program to date. Scolytines are the most abundant taxa, making up 83% of the catch. No new exotics have been trapped but 19 of the species and 60% of all specimens caught are exotics that are already established in Australia.

Quantitative assessment of total phenol contents of European oak (Quercus petraea and Quercus robur) by diffuse reflectance NIR spectroscopy on solid wood surfaces

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) combined with multivariate analysis techniques was applied to assess phenol content of European oak. NIRS data were firstly collected directly from solid heartwood surfaces: in doing so, the spectra were recorded separately from the longitudinal radial and the transverse section surfaces by diffuse reflectance. The spectral data were then pretreated by several pre-processing procedures, such as multiplicative scatter correction, first derivative, second derivative and standard normal variate. The tannin contents of sawmill collected from the longitudinal radial and transverse section surfaces were determined by quantitative extraction with water/methanol (1:4, by vol). Then, total phenol contents in tannin extracts were measured by the Folin-Ciocalteu method. The NIR data were correlated against the Folin-Ciocalteu results. Calibration models built with partial least squares regression displayed strong correlation - as expressed by high determination correlation coefficient (r2) and high ratio of performance to deviation (RPD) - between measured and predicted total phenols content, and weak calibration and prediction errors (RMSEC, RMSEP). The best calibration was provided with second derivative spectra (r2 value of 0.93 for the longitudinal radial plane and of 0.91 for the transverse section plane). This study illustrates that the NIRS technique when used in conjunction with multivariate analysis could provide reliable, quick and non-destructive assessment of European oak heartwood extractives.

Achievements in forest tree genetic improvement in Australia and New Zealand 2: Development of Corymbia species and hybrids for plantations in eastern Australia

This paper describes the establishment of provenance seedling seed orchards of three spotted gums and cadaga (all species of Corymbia ex Eucalyptus). It also discusses the limitations of growing the spotted gums as pure species including: lack of mass flowering, susceptibility to a fungal shoot blight and low amenability to vegetative propagation. These limitations, together with observation of putative natural hybrids of the spotted gums with cadaga, and the early promise of manipulated hybrids, led to an intensive breeding and testing program. Many hybrid families have significant advantages in growth and tolerance to disease, insects and frost, and can be vegetatively propagated. They also exhibit broad environmental plasticity, allowing the best varieties to be planted across a wider range of sites than the spotted gums, resulting in more land being suitable for plantation development.

Variation in exotic and native seed arrival and recruitment of bird dispersed species in subtropical forest restoration and regrowth

Invasive bird-dispersed plants often share the same suite of dispersers as co-occurring native species, resulting in a complex management issue. Integrated management strategies could incorporate manipulation of dispersal or establishment processes. To improve our understanding of these processes, we quantified seed rain, recruit and seed bank density, and species richness for bird-dispersed invasive and native species in three early successional subtropical habitats in eastern Australia: tree regrowth, shrub regrowth and native restoration plantings. We investigated the effects of environmental factors (leaf area index (LAI), distance to edge, herbaceous ground cover and distance to nearest neighbour) on seed rain, seed bank and recruit abundance. Propagule availability was not always a good predictor of recruitment. For instance, although native tree seed rain density was similar, and species richness was higher, in native plantings, compared with tree regrowth, recruit density and species richness were lower. Native plantings also received lower densities of invasive tree seed rain than did tree regrowth habitats, but supported a similar density of invasive tree recruits. Invasive shrub seed rain was recorded in highest densities in shrub regrowth sites, but recruit density was similar between habitats. We discuss the role of microsite characteristics in influencing post-dispersal processes and recruit composition, and suggest ways of manipulating these processes as part of an integrated management strategy for bird-dispersed weeds in natural areas.

Sustainable native forest management. Case studies in managing private native forest in southeast Queensland.

The introduction describes productive forest in Queensland and summaries the principles of native forest management that achieve optimum productivity. Case study 1 deals with thinning an even-aged regrowth forest. It shows how thinning the stand actively manages the future composition and structure to improve productivity in the best stems and increase the commercial value of the next harvest. Case study 2 describes restoring productivity in a high-graded spotted gum - ironbark forest. It shows that defective and non-saleable trees should be removed so they do not repress the future stand; and that regeneration should be thinned, retaining the best trees in adequate growing space. Case study 3 discusses on-farm value adding for hardwood forests. It shows how long-term viability and maximum productivity and returns depend on the best management practices and knowing how to obtain the best returns from a range of forest products. Case study 4 examines integrated harvesting in a eucalypt forest. It shows how integrating the harvest enables the full range of timber products are harvested and sold for their maximum value while reducing the amount of waste.

Productivity of plantation hardwood tree species in north-eastern Australia: A report from the Forest Adaptation and Sequestration Alliance

The report summarises data from a large number of trials of species with potential for use by the plantation forest industry in north-eastern Australia and provides information aimed at improving the understanding of growth rates, pest and disease risks and carbon sequestration. Data is summarised and presented at a regional level as opposed to individual trial or plot level. As well, nutritional impediments to tree growth and impacts on forest health are also reported. This report is intended to contribute to policy deliberations about developing forestry opportunities that can that can be integrated into the landscape, with particular consideration given to lower rainfall regions. There are several examples in north-eastern Australia where production forests have developed sub-optimally; this has often been due to poor selection of tree species as little information has been available. This report helps address this deficiency.

Forest health guide: symptoms of insect and fungal damage on trees

The Forest health guide: symptoms of insect and fungal damage on trees is intended to help forestry and quarantine staff undertake tree health assessments, in both forest and urban environments. The guide is designed to be used as a quick reference to common symptoms of damage, not as an identification guide to particular insect pests and pathogens.

Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation (FWPRDC) Cypress exatractives

Study to investigate the use of cypress pine extractives as a novel timber preservative.

Establishing forest pest detection systems in South Pacific and Australia

The aim of the project is to reduce the risk of serious damage by exotic pests to the valuable timber resources of Fiji, Vanuatu and Australia by establishing efficient detection systems for target pests in high hazard sites. In particular, the project aims to minimise losses in the valuable plantations of Fiji and the emerging plantation industry of Vanuatu. This is part of a 'neighbourhood watch' approach to incursion management that will benefit all regional countries, including Australia.

Lilly Baum, her mother Lina Baum, and Grete Baum nee Dublon (l-r) standing in a forest Portraits Women

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An audit of forest biosecurity arrangements and preparedness in Australia.

Current biosecurity arrangements for plantation forestry are poorly defined, at least relative to other plant-based industries. Serious pest and disease outbreaks in forestry are relatively rare events. Preparedness for rare events is difficult. Part of the difficulty stems from the competing views of managers and stakeholders. This project sought to directly capture alternative views concerning the key objectives of plantation forest biosecurity, alternative strategies for achieving those objectives, and ultimately recommend preferred actions that might be broadly supported by stakeholders. The outcomes from the workshop were used as a basis to draft a list of strategic actions required to improve forest biosecurity in Australia and to be implemented over the next 2-5 years. Research priorities were identified as research to support cost benefit analyses; investigating the effects of changed environmental conditions on forest biosecurity; pathway analysis for functional pest guilds. Integration of this research within a CRC would also permit the effective development and extension of this research as well as providing training urgently required to maintain forest biosecurity and health expertise.

Management of multi-scale forest resource data over time

During the last decades there has been a global shift in forest management from a focus solely on timber management to ecosystem management that endorses all aspects of forest functions: ecological, economic and social. This has resulted in a shift in paradigm from sustained yield to sustained diversity of values, goods and benefits obtained at the same time, introducing new temporal and spatial scales into forest resource management. The purpose of the present dissertation was to develop methods that would enable spatial and temporal scales to be introduced into the storage, processing, access and utilization of forest resource data. The methods developed are based on a conceptual view of a forest as a hierarchically nested collection of objects that can have a dynamically changing set of attributes. The temporal aspect of the methods consists of lifetime management for the objects and their attributes and of a temporal succession linking the objects together. Development of the forest resource data processing method concentrated on the extensibility and configurability of the data content and model calculations, allowing for a diverse set of processing operations to be executed using the same framework. The contribution of this dissertation to the utilisation of multi-scale forest resource data lies in the development of a reference data generation method to support forest inventory methods in approaching single-tree resolution.