The Government of Western Australia, formally referred to as Her Majesty's Government of Western Australia, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of Western Australia. It is also commonly referred to as the WA Government or the Western Australian Government. The Government of Western Australia, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, was formed in 1890 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended from time to time. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, Western Australia has been a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Constitution of Australia regulates its relationship with the Commonwealth. Under the Australian Constitution, Western Australia ceded legislative and judicial supremacy to the Commonwealth, but retained powers in all matters not in conflict with the Commonwealth..
Coral reefs are vital social-ecological systems, but highly vulnerable to global change and local stressors. While conveying the urgency of existential threats is paramount, bleak outlooks can become self-reinforcing, limiting capacities to act. To counter this, experts working on coral reefs in diverse geographies imagined coral reef futures through a structured visioning process. The resulting visions offer alternatives aspiring to desirability, sustainability, and equity for coral reefs. These broaden the conversation on coral reef futures, enabling discussions beyond siloed conservation, traditional management tools, or pure techno-fixes. Concepts such as earth stewardship, biocultural revitalization, and anticipatory governance emerged as essential to sustaining human well-being and enabling the viability of future coral reef ecosystems before, during, and beyond social-ecological shocks. By fostering forward-thinking dialog, these visions and narratives constitute key stepping stones to reimagining desirable relationships between people and coral reefs and speak to both anticipatory and adaptive pathways toward desired change.
During the late Paleozoic glacial ice extended from Antarctica across most of the Australian part of Gondwana. Maximum ice thickness over Antarctica was similar to 5400-8000 m and over central Australia 2700-4000 m. Asselian to Sakmarian warming led to in situ down wasting of ice, producing thick successions of proglacial sediments. Subsequent marine transgression penetrated along the southern lowland from the (now) southeast of the continent, but not into the Pedirka and Cooper basins. Early Jurassic subsidence in the central part of the Australian plate initiated development of the Eromanga Basin and fluviatile sedimentation. From the latest Jurassic to Early Cretaceous climate became progressively colder (Frakes Thermal Minimum), punctuated by two major glaciations and a lesser late Aptian event that are coincident with global cold intervals. Glacial debris was deposited along southern margins of the Eromanga Basin. Marine influence commenced in the latest Jurassic(?) to earliest Valanginian, followed by at least 14 transgressions and regressions in the Valanginian to early Cenomanian. Regression from the interior of the continent by the early Cenomanian led to fluvial to lacustrine conditions. Higher rainfall and temperature in the Late Cretaceous to early Paleocene promoted deep weathering. A drainage divide existed between the central part of the continent and the Eucla Basin. Subsidence in the late Paleocene initiated fluvial to lacustrine deposition in the Lake Eyre Basin. Climate during the ensuing late Paleocene to early Eocene in the central part of Australia was warmer than the south where cool temperate, high-rainfall conditions prevailed. Deposition during the middle Eocene to late Eocene spread over a large part of the interior of the continent in an endorheic drainage system akin to the Okavango delta in Botswana. Climate in the interior had become monsoonal, whereas along the southern coastal region conditions were moist, warm temperate fostering prolonged weathering and widespread silicification in the interior, a process probably extending into the Oligocene. By the early Neogene climate was warmer and drier in the interior, drainage was poor and rainfall strongly seasonal with high evaporation rates producing saline and carbonate-rich lakes. In the early to middle Miocene episodic subsidence in the Lake Eyre Basin, along with mild uplift along the southern basin margin and/or falling lake levels, led to stream rejuvenation.
Spanning approximately 358-252 Ma, the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) was the most significant Phanerozoic glaciation across Gondwana. This study focuses on understanding the roles of astronomical forcings in glaciosedimentation and environmental change during the Carboniferous-Permian transition in the Southern Carnarvon and Canning basins of Western Australia. Using gamma-ray logs from five wells, we analyzed sediment accumulation rates and identified cyclic depositional patterns driven by orbital eccentricity (similar to 405 kyr, similar to 100 kyr) and obliquity (similar to 35 kyr). Astrochronological analysis established a high-resolution temporal framework, revealing twelve 405-kyr eccentricity cycles in the Gzhelian Stage, consistent with global sedimentary patterns. Geochemical analysis of redox-sensitive elements from Point Moody 1 well reveals three anoxic events, coinciding with sea-level rises at the Kasimovian-Gzhelian Boundary (similar to 303.7 Ma), in the early Late Gzhelian (similar to 301 Ma), and at or close to Carboniferous-Permian Boundary (similar to 298.9 Ma). These events suggest oxygen-depleted marine conditions were linked to deglaciation and warming phases. The dominance of eccentricity-paced cycles in glacial deposits underscore the significance of orbital forcing in controlling ice sheet dynamics and sedimentation. The comparable anoxic signatures in South China and South Africa indicate these environmental changes were globally synchronized during the Gzhelian. These findings provide the LPIA's time frame in northeastern Gondwana, enhance global correlations of glacial and anoxic events, and provide insight into orbital controls on icehouse climates, with implications for paleoclimate modeling and the Earth's climatic evolution.
In June and July 2025, symptoms of willow rust were observed on weeping willows (Salix babylonica) across New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Affected trees had a slightly chlorotic appearance, with masses of orange to yellow uredinia on the underside of leaves and occurring on most leaves on sampled trees. Samples from Sydney and regional NSW (Bathurst and Orange) were collected when yellow to orange uredinia were abundant on the abaxial surface of infected leaves. Microscopic examination confirmed urediniospores were globose, subglobose or ovoid, evenly echinulate, 13–28 x 12–17 µm with walls of 1.7-2.4 µm (n=15) and matched the description of numerous Melampsora species described from Salix (Toome and Aime 2015). Molecular identification was undertaken following the methods described by Toome and Aime (2015), apart from the DNA extraction which was performed using the Qiagen DNeasy® Plant Mini Kit as per the manufacturer’s instruction. Subsequent PCR and sequencing targeted the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and the large ribosomal sub-unit (28S) using primers RustITS1F–RustITS2R and Rust2inv–LR6, respectively (Toome and Aime 2015). A BLASTn analysis against the NCBI Eukaryota nucleotide (nt_euk) database revealed the samples shared a high sequence similarity with vouchered specimens of Melampsora ferrinii (e.g., ITS, 100% to M. ferrinii HMJAU 8956 OR612063; LSU, 100% to PUR N6740 [holotype] KJ136564). Sequences produced in this study were ultimately compared with other published Melampsora sequences reported globally to confirm the identification and included M. laricis-populina as the outgroup. Phylogenetic analysis was performed in Geneious Prime® using the Mafft alignment and RAxML plugins. All samples collected in this study formed a well-supported clade with M. ferrinii, confirming these as the first records of this species for Australia. The examined specimens were deposited in the NSW Plant Pathology and Mycology Herbarium (DAR87600–DAR87606) and sequences submitted to GenBank (ITS, PX232779–PX232785; LSU, PX232786–PX232792). Previously, only M. coleosporioides had been reported from weeping willow in Australia, and M. epitea on other Salix species, based on morphological characterisation (Marks and Walker 1972, Walker 1978). Based on the spread of our detections, from Sydney and regional NSW, it is likely that M. ferrinii is already well established in Australia. It is possible that M. ferrinii has in fact been present since the first records of willow rust in the 1970s. This hypothesis follows the observations made by Toome and Aime (2015) who revised the status of Melampsora on weeping willows in the United States based on molecular analysis, and is further supported by the numerous reports of M. ferrinii on S. babylonica that have since followed from other parts of the world, including Chile (Zapata 2016), China (Ji et al. 2024) and Iran (Abbasi et al. 2024). Further research is needed to understand the distribution of M. ferrinii across Australia. We intend to address this by revisiting historical collections and surveying for willow rust in future seasons, keeping in mind that new aecial hosts have also been reported and could introduce an alternative pathway to assess the spread and distribution (Peng et al. 2022, Lee et al. 2024).
Context Spatial targeting involves relocating fishing effort to reduce unwanted catch (e.g. bycatch) while maintaining target catch. However, it is challenging to measure target-bycatch separation, develop viable scenarios for fishing effort relocation, and measure impacts on fishers.Aims We demonstrate a simple but data-driven spatial prioritisation analysis, to evaluate whether local changes to fishing location can reduce bycatch with minimal reduction in target catch in an ocean prawn trawl.Methods Using observed and predicted catch compositions, we extend a published spatial prioritisation method to evaluate the impact of spatial targeting on target catch and bycatch, and measure fisher impact on the basis of the percentage of historical effort relocated.Key results Spatial targeting effectiveness varied by species priority. Although shark and ray bycatch showed reduction potential (up to a 30-60% decrease in bycatch for a 0-15% decrease in target catch), differences among data sources created uncertainty about priority fishing locations. Limited spatial separation between main target and bycatch species also meant unlikely total bycatch reduction. Fisher impacts varied, with effort redistribution often exceeding bycatch reduction gains.Conclusions Spatial targeting has the potential for avoiding specific species, but is unlikely to reduce total bycatch in this fishery.Implications This prioritisation framework offers a simple but robust method to explore spatial targeting by using observed or predicted catch compositions.
