TERN Far North Queensland Rainforest SuperSite - Daintree - Australia

FNQ Rainforest SuperSite-Daintree is a member of the Australian SuperSite Network (SuperSites, http://www.supersites.net.au/), a facility within the Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Network (TERN, http://www.tern.org.au/). SuperSites aims to answer both network wide and site-specific science questions through long term monitoring using both sensor technology and classical field methods. The FNQ Rainforest SuperSite is divided structurally into two transects, each based around an intensive study site node: the lowland rainforest node is based in the Daintree rainforest near Cape Tribulation and the upland rainforest is based at Robson Creek. The rainforests of FNQ occupy less than 0.2% of Australia’s landmass, yet support more than 10% of its flora, 36% of its mammals and 48% of its birds. The last remnants of the rainforests which formerly covered most of the continent, these globally significant World Heritage communities are also a repository for many ancestral lineages of the iconic species of Australia today, including kangaroos and eucalypts. Significant environmental clines (altitude, temperature, rainfall) exist over short distances in the region. This enables the monitoring of multiple parameters across a broad range of environments possible within the compact footprint of the FNQ Rainforest SuperSite. The Daintree node comprises two sites (i) the Daintree Rainforest Observatory (DRO) at Cape Tribulation, comprising a long-term monitoring plots, canopy crane, and extensive researcher and teaching infrastructure and (ii) research facilities at the Daintree Discovery Centre at Cow Bay, an award winning ecotourism interpretive centre featuring a canopy tower, aerial walkway and scientific monitoring. Key research objectives include: ● How are the biota (in particular locally endemic species) changing in form, frequency and distribution and what are the drivers for this? ● Does the vegetation represent a stable structure (overstorey versus understory dynamics) or has climate change affected it? ● Which taxa of organisms are the most sensitive to local climate change and how can these be assembled into an accurate biodiversity monitoring tool? ● What are the fundamental vertical and lateral energy, carbon, water and nutrient stocks and flows in the tropical forests of north Queensland? ● How are these stocks and flows responding to past management and climate change and how are they likely to respond in the future? ● How important is the connectivity between these ecosystems