The impact of fire, in oldgrowth forest of the Walpole-Nornalup National Park, on short-range endemic invertebrates and their forest floor communities.

Study Design:

Trap Design: 16 pit traps per site, with a diameter of 90 mm, one third filled with ethylene glycol and opened for 10 days. 8 of these traps to be dug into the forest floor and another 8 either attached to a log, dug into deep tree butt litter or dug inside a hollow butt.

Site Design:

  1. Tingle (Gully) unburnt 64 years (1937), Douglas Hill, (Floor and logs)
  2. Tingle unburnt 64 years (1937), Douglas Hill, (Butts and Hollow-butts)
  3. Tingle unburnt 8 years (1993/94), Delta Rd, (Floor and logs)
  4. Tingle unburnt 8 months (2001), Nuyts Wildfire, (Butts and Hollow-butts)
  5. Tingle (Gully) unburnt 8 months (2001), Nuyts Wildfire, (Floor and logs)
  6. Tingle (Upland) unburnt 8 months (2001), Nuyts Wildfire, (Floor and logs)
  7. Jarrah unburnt 35 years (1965/66), Sandy Beach Rd, (Floor and logs)
  8. Jarrah unburnt 8 months (2001), Nuyts wildfire, (Floor and logs).
  9. Karri (Gully) 30yrs unburnt, SE of Mt. Clare, (Floor and logs)
  10. Karri (Gully) unburnt 8 months (2001), Nuyts wildfire, (Floor and logs)
  11. Marri (Upland) 30 years unburnt, Deep River (Floor and logs)
  12. Marri (Upland) unburnt 8 months, Nuyts wildfire, (Floor and logs)
  13. Tingle (Gully) unburnt 64 years (1937), Douglas Hill (Floor and logs, Galts trap solution)
  14. Tingle (Gully) unburnt 8 months, Nuyts wildfire, (Floor and logs, Galts trap solution)
  15. Pines (Mid slope) unburnt 8 months, Nuyts wildfire, (Floor and logs)
  16. Karri (Granite outcrop) unburnt 8 months, Nuyts wildfire, (Floor and logs)


Specimen Curation:

All litter community species collected will be incorporated into the Nuyts Collection. The sorting and identification methodology will follow Oliver and Beattie 1996, Van Heurck et. al. 2000, and McKenzie et. al. 2002.

To date a group of 10 volunteers lead by the volunteer Collection Curator (Jacky Manning) have identified over 300 morphospecies from thousands of collected specimens.


Voucher specimens

It is estimated that at least 700 morphospecies (> 10,000 specimens) will be collected and incorporated into the Nuyts Collection. Several individuals of each of these morphospecies will be incorporated into the Nuyts Collection for use as a reference collection for the current survey. In future it is planned to house the Nuyts Collection in the local Discovery Centre for continued reference and expansion by the local community, ecology researchers and for the use of specialist taxonomists. All other specimens of each morphospecies will be lodged with the Western Australian Museum for species determination, validation and description.