Identifying areas of high biodiversity value is critical for effective conservation. Similarly, identifying gaps in existing protected area networks is fundamental to determining where new areas are needed to better conserve biodiversity. We conducted a spatial prioritisation analysis for forest and woodland-dependent species across Victoria using the program Zonation, integrating datasets on IBRA bioregions, EVC groups, forest disturbance and habitat models for rare and threatened taxa. Our study addressed three questions: (Q1) Where are the highest priority areas for rare and threatened forest and woodland species? (Q2) Where are the highest priority areas in relation to the current protected area network across particular regions? (Q3) Are there additional high-priority areas that would need to be included in the protected area network? Our results highlighted key IBRA subregions with the highest conservation priority for forest and woodland dependent species, including Murray Fans, Gippsland Plain, Otway Ranges, Strzelecki Ranges, Goldfields, Highlands - Northern Fall and East Gippsland Lowlands. Unprotected state forests previously zoned for logging were consistently associated with lower conservation value scores, likely due to degraded forest condition. In contrast, state forests zoned as special protection zones (SPZs) achieved the same scores as those assigned protection under IUCN category II, such as national parks. Natural Features Reserves and IUCN protected area categories III and V featured the highest scoring land tenures. Our gap analysis revealed that for several IBRA subregions, most top-priority areas (Zonation bin scores 0.9-1.0) were in unprotected land tenures, particularly state forests. These included the IBRA subregions of the Highlands - Southern Fall and Highlands - Northern Fall. Our findings underscore the need to extend formal protection to high conservation value areas in underrepresented IBRA subregions, primarily through the expansion of national parks and other kinds of legislated conservation reserves across specific subregions.

Forest loss is a significant global problem. Forest certification schemes and protected areas are two key approaches for improving forest conservation and management outcomes, but their effectiveness in reducing national-level forest loss remains unclear. Here, we analysed an 11-year high-resolution satellite dataset on tree canopy removal from 2013 to 2023 to assess associations between forest loss, certification, protection, and economic factors globally. We found that forest loss persisted globally with no evidence of decline in countries with higher levels of certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Forest loss was lower in higher-income countries (measured by gross domestic product per capita) and higher where industrial roundwood and fuelwood production was greater. While forest certification may improve management of certified forests, our results suggest limited effectiveness in reducing overall forest loss. Strengthening certification and protected-area strategies will be essential to slow global forest loss. Global forest loss continues with no evidence of reduction by certification or protection. Non-fire forest loss was positively associated with industrial roundwood and fuelwood production, and negatively associated with GDP per capita (2013–2023)

Regeneration following disturbance is a key natural process in forests worldwide and understanding the factors influencing it is critical to forest management. Here, using satellite data, historical logging data (1980-2019), and on-ground surveys, we quantified the spatial and temporal extent of regeneration failure following logging in the Eucalyptus forests of south-eastern Australia. We asked: What is the spatial extent and distribution of regeneration failure? Has the prevalence of regeneration failure changed over time? And, what climatic, topographic and other factors influence regeneration failure? We found that 19.2 % of areas logged between 1980 and 2019 in our study area (8030 ha of 41,819 ha cut) were characterized by regeneration failure. There was strong evidence of a significant increase in the extent of failed regeneration over the 40 years of our study, increasing from an average of <2 ha per cutblock in 1980 (∼7.5%) to an average of >9 ha per cutblock in 2019 (∼85%). The rate of change in regeneration failure also has increased. Regeneration failure was greatest on cutblocks with particular attributes including those: (1) with a high edge-area ratio (corresponding to long narrow logged areas), (2) on steep slopes, (3) at low elevation, and (4) dominated by Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forest compared to other species (e.g. Alpine Ash [Eucalyptus delegatensis]). Our results suggest that attempts to regenerate forest cover in some areas may become challenging after logging, including cutblocks on steep slopes that experience comparatively drier conditions.

Fire regimes (the sequence of fires and their attributes including intensity, frequency and patchiness) are fundamental to the structure and function of many ecosystems. In many locations, changes in fire regimes are threatening large numbers of species. In this Review, we discuss the factors that cause certain species and groups of species to be harmed by fire regime changes and identify strategies to manage the species that are most sensitive to fire regime change. Variation in species sensitivity to fire and fire regime change is influenced by species life history characteristics (such as long generation times or low reproductive rates) and landscape characteristics (such as habitat patchiness caused by previous fires). Management considerations include maintaining or restoring appropriate levels of spatial patchiness in fire; avoiding degradation of ecosystem condition; implementing post-fire management that can support species recovery (for example, avoid salvage logging and control invasive species); managing the overall disturbance burden; and minimizing the stressors that can co-occur with (and interact negatively with) altered fire regimes. Progress in identifying and conserving species most sensitive to altered fire regimes requires more long-term studies, particularly those spanning multiple fire events and accounting for stressors that interact with fire regimes and affect ecosystem integrity. In many locations globally, wildfires are becoming more frequent, intense and/or larger in area compared with historical fire regimes. This Review discusses the factors that determine how species and ecosystems respond to changing fire regimes and outlines important conservation and management considerations.

Much of the planet's forest biodiversity is at risk from a range of threats. Threats include gaps in the protected area network and instances where these gaps are subject to intensive industrial logging. These gaps are referred to as optimal areas for protection and we sought to determine if certification schemes maintained the environmental values of these areas across Australia. To do this, we identified gaps within the existing protected area network across Australia that were optimal areas for protecting forest- and woodland-dependent species of national environmental significance. We intersected our results with spatial records of logging between 2007 and 2023 in the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales that have been awarded certification under the Responsible Wood scheme. We found a large proportion of logging in Victoria and New South Wales occurred within high scoring optimal areas for protecting species of national environmental significance. We conclude that certification schemes are likely failing to meet their stated objectives to adequately maintain the environmental values of optimal areas for protection from the most intensive forms of logging. Reform of Australia's certification schemes and a significant expansion of protected forest areas is urgently needed.

In an earlier study published in Science of the Total Environment (Taylor et al., 2019), we used an established hydrological model (based on what is known as the Kuzcera curve), to analyse the impacts of logging on water yields in a major watershed - the Thomson water supply catchment - in the Central Highlands of Victoria, south-eastern Australia. We demonstrated that under some plausible climate change projections, the impacts of logging on catchment water yields may exceed those resulting from climate change (Taylor et al., 2019). In a Letter to the Editor (2024), it was argued there were problems with our analysis and, as a result, if the Thomson water supply catchment was subject to logging and thinning such actions may be "water positive". While we acknowledge a lack of availability in forest and hydrological field inventory data across the Thomson catchment, as well as variability in differing modelled results, we outline some important reasons our original conclusions that logging may lead to reduced water yields remain vali.

There has been extensive commentary about historical First Nations' land management in Australia, including in tall, wet forests, and therefore their condition at the time of the British invasion in 1788. Popular texts have interpreted records kept by early British invaders to argue that extensive areas of tall, wet forest were kept open through frequent burning by the First Peoples. However, these interpretations conflict with historical and ecological evidence, which is rarely acknowledged in public discourse. Here, we present evidence about what Victorian Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests were like at the time of the British invasion. We show that at the time of the British invasion, most areas of mainland Mountain Ash forests were likely to have been naturally dense and wet, with: (1) overstorey trees spaced relatively widely; and (2) an understorey consisting of a cool temperate rainforest mesic layer. Ecological and physiological evidence suggests that Mountain Ash forests evolved under conditions where high-severity wildfire was comparatively rare, leading to patterns of landscape-level cover dominated by relatively mature forests. This is broadly consistent with reports from the First Peoples, early historical accounts, paintings, and photographs. These forests were not open or park-like, as may have been the case in some other Australian vegetation types. However, these forests were not wilderness, but places of significance to the First Peoples. Understanding forest structure at the time of the British invasion is critically important in establishing historical reference conditions for guiding appropriate restoration programmes, especially the reinstatement of traditional ecological knowledge, after long periods of post-British invasion disturbance and degradation. Notably, the dense, wet understorey that characterizes Mountain Ash forests should be recognized as an inherent and entirely natural part of the ecological dynamics of this ecosystem, with approaches to thin, burn, or remove it highly likely to be counterproductive and have a range of detrimental environmental effects. This study investigates multiple different forms of ecological and historical evidence about what the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests within the Wet and Damp Forest Ecological Vegetation Classes in Victoria were like prior to, and at the time of, the British invasion in 1788. We show that at the time of the British invasion, mainland Mountain Ash forests were naturally dense and wet, with overstorey trees relatively widely spaced and an understorey consisting of a mesic layer of broad-leaved shrubs, tree ferns, and midstory trees, including elements of cool temperate rainforest.image

Context Thousands of species have been recognised as being at risk of extinction in formal listing processes such as those under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Less common is the recognition that some ecological communities are also at risk and for them to be formally listed. Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) in Australia ~100 communities have been recognised as threatened. This number is likely an underestimate as many ecological communities lack available robust long-term data to facilitate assessment. Aims and methods Using insights from a range of research studies and long-term monitoring in the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria, we examine evidence for its listing as a Threatened Ecological Community. Key results The structure and composition of the Mountain Ash ecological community and the key ecological processes that underpin its integrity have been radically altered in the past century. The community is extensively degraded, heavily fragmented, and suffering substantial biodiversity loss. It should be listed as a Threatened Ecological Community under the EPBC Act. Conclusions and implications Insights from long-term ecological monitoring and other studies provide a strong case for listing the Mountain Ash forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria as a Threatened Ecological Community. The community meets four of the six criteria for listing as a threatened ecological community. Under those four criteria, the Mountain Ash forest community should be listed as either Endangered or Critically Endangered.

Parallel algorithms relying on synchronous parallelization libraries often experience adverse performance due to global synchronization barriers. Asynchronous many-task runtimes offer task futurization capabilities that minimize or remove the need for global synchronization barriers. This paper conducts a case study of the multidimensional Fast Fourier Transform to identify which applications will benefit from the asynchronous many-task model. Our basis is the popular FFTW library [ 7 ]. We use the asynchronous many-task model HPX and a one-dimensional FFTW backend to implement multiple versions using different HPX features and highlight overheads and pitfalls during migration. Furthermore, we add an HPX threading backend to FFTW. The case study analyzes shared memory scaling properties between our HPX-based parallelization and FFTW with its pthreads, OpenMP, and HPX backends. The case study also compares FFTW’s MPI+X backend to a purely HPX-based distributed implementation. The FFT application does not profit from asynchronous task execution. In contrast, enforcing task synchronization results in better cache performance and thus better runtime. Nonetheless, the HPX backend for FFTW is competitive with existing backends. Our distributed HPX implementation based on HPX collectives using MPI parcelport has similar performance to FFTW’s MPI+OpenMP . However, the LCI parcelport of HPX accelerated communication up to factor 5.

Context Protected areas are necessary to conserve biodiversity. Their locations, design and management can have major impacts on their effectiveness. In timber and pulpwood production forests of Victoria, Australia, Immediate Protection Areas (IPAs) were established by the Victorian Government to conserve biodiversity. IPA identification has overlooked much of 30 years of reserve selection science. This has resulted in poor selection of locations for protection, lack of attention to habitat suitability for target species, and a destructive past land use history that has eroded current habitat suitability. Aims Our aim was to assess the suitability IPAs for threatened species, including Leadbeater’s Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) and the Southern Greater Glider (Petauroides volans). Methods We assessed aspects of effectiveness of IPAs for forest-dependent species of conservation concern. We compared the IPAs to a prioritised protected area network using Marxan accounting for past forest disturbances, including logging and high severity wildfires. Key results We found IPAs failed to include the most suitable habitat areas, capturing only 11.7% of modelled habitat for Leadbeater’s Possum and 5.3% for the Southern Greater Glider. Our analyses also revealed large parts of the IPA network had been clearcut logged, eroding habitat value for many species. Conclusions Given IPAs do not protect substantial amounts of important habitat for threatened species such as Leadbeater’s Possum and Southern Greater Glider, we conclude the current IPAs are unlikely to adequately protect biodiversity from logging. Implications The IPAs need to be better designed to improve their effectiveness for biodiversity conservation. We provide recommendations on how this might be done.

Ocean physics and biology can interact in myriad and complex ways. Eddies, features found at many scales in the ocean, can drive substantial changes in physical and biogeochemical fields with major implications for marine ecosystems. Mesoscale eddies are challenging to model and difficult to observe synoptically at sea due to their fine-scale variability yet broad extent. In this work we observed a frontal eddy just north of Cape Hatteras via an intensive hydrographic, biogeochemical, and optical sampling campaign. Frontal eddies occur in western boundary currents around the globe and there are major gaps in our understanding of their ecosystem impacts. In the Gulf Stream, frontal eddies have been studied in the South Atlantic Bight, where they are generally assumed to shear apart passing Cape Hatteras. However, we found that the observed frontal eddy had different physical properties and phytoplankton community composition from adjacent water masses, in addition to continued cyclonic rotation. In this work we first synthesize the overall ecological impacts of frontal eddies in a simple conceptual model. This conceptual model led to the hypothesis that frontal eddies could be well timed to supply zooplankton to secondary consumers off Cape Hatteras where there is a notably high concentration and diversity of top predators. Towards testing this hypothesis and our conceptual model we report on the biogeochemical state of this particular eddy connecting physical and biological dynamics, analyze how it differs from Gulf Stream and shelf waters even in “death”, and refine our initial model with this new data. Key Points In-depth investigation of a frontal eddy in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina Continued physical and biogeochemical differences are observed between the eddy and adjacent water masses even as it begins to shear apart We share a conceptual model of the ecological impact of frontal eddies with a hypothesis that they supply zooplankton to secondary consumers Plain Language Summary Frontal eddies are spinning masses of water (~30km in diameter) that move along western boundary currents like the Gulf Stream. When they form they carry productive coastal water into the Gulf Stream and drive upwelling within their cores. Together this leads to an increase in the amount of phytoplankton within them - much higher compared to surrounding nutrient-limited Gulf Stream water. On the east coast of the United States one common area of frontal eddy formation is just off Charleston, SC. Eddies then travel up the coast and dissipate near Cape Hatteras, NC. In this work we measured a wide range of physical and biological properties of a frontal eddy just north of Cape Hatteras. We compared these properties within the eddy to the coastal water on one side and the Gulf Stream water on the other, finding clear differences in phytoplankton community composition and other physical and chemical properties. Using the results of these observations together with previous studies we share a simple model for how frontal eddies may impact phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish – hypothesizing that they may contribute to the high diversity and density of top predators off Cape Hatteras.

Background: Previous research has demonstrated that muscle synergy structure can adapt owing to training and injury; however, muscle synergies have not been evaluated in baseball players. Hypothesis: The throwing arm would have a similar muscle synergy structure but different levels of individual muscle activity within each synergy, relative to the nonthrowing arm. Study Design: Cross-sectional study in a controlled laboratory setting. Methods: Fourteen healthy competitive baseball players were included. Participants were tested bilaterally during a center-out planar reaching task using the KINARM robot, where kinematic data and surface electromyography data from 14 glenohumeral and scapular muscles were synchronized. Principal component analysis was used to extract muscle synergies, the variance accounted for (VAF) of each synergy, and individual muscle coefficients. The dominant (DOM) arm was compared with the nondominant (NDOM) arm using paired t tests for all dependent variables. Results: The same number of muscle synergies were extracted on the DOM and NDOM arms, along with no differences in VAF. In the first synergy, the infraspinatus (DOM 0.798 vs NDOM 0.587, P = 0.038) and lower trapezius (DOM 0.872 vs NDOM 0.480, P = 0.005) muscle coefficients significantly increased on the DOM arm. The second synergy had a significantly increased anterior deltoid (DOM 0.764 vs NDOM 0.374, P = 0.003) and a significantly decreased posterior deltoid (DOM −0.069 vs NDOM 0.197, P = 0.041) muscle coefficient on the DOM arm. Conclusion: The DOM shoulder exhibits a higher proportion of infraspinatus and lower trapezius muscle activation during the external rotation and abduction synergy. Also, the DOM shoulder has increased muscle activation of the teres major and latissimus dorsi during the internal rotation synergy, and increased muscle activation of the pectoralis major during the cross-body adduction synergy, compared with the NDOM shoulder. Clinical Relevance: By exploring these neuromuscular adaptations, the improved understanding of muscle synergy adaptations in baseball players will help optimize injury prevention and rehabilitation techniques.

Climate and weather are often the dominant drivers of fire behaviour, but the effects of forest management (including logging) also can be important and must not be ignored. An increasing body of evidence indicates that there is a significantly greater risk of high-severity fire in logged forests relative to undisturbed forest. This includes evidence from the 2019-20 wildfires. Elevated logging-induced forest flammability can last for several decades after cutting and is a particular concern in areas subject to prolonged and widespread industrial forestry. Logging prior to fire can simplify stand structure and reduce the potential for recovery following fire, an effect resulting from the limited prevalence for cutover areas to transmit biological legacies like large living and dead old trees from pre- to the post-fire stands. Logging soon after fires - sometimes termed 'salvage logging' - has negative effects on many elements of forests, from microbes and soils to plants and vertebrates. The 2019-20 wildfires left few and often small areas of unburnt refugia within the fire footprint. Some of these areas may be important for promoting post-fire biodiversity recovery. It will therefore be important to ensure that such areas are not further disturbed, such as by logging operations. The links between logging and fire and their combined effects on flammability, as well as on forest condition and biodiversity, suggest a need to cease widespread industrial logging in Australian native forests. This includes the cessation of post-fire (salvage) logging. Cessation of industrial logging is needed to reduce the number of stressors in many forest ecosystems which have been subject to frequent, widespread and severe wildfires in the past 25 years. Cessation of logging is also essential for increasing the extent of old growth forest cover, where fire severity is lowest and post-fire ecological recovery is strongest. Protection from fire of the extensive areas of flammable forest created by past logging operations demands the development of new technologies such as drone fleets or satellite platforms, along with expanded capacity for proven techniques such as specialist remote-area fire-fighting crews for rapid detection and expeditious suppression of ignitions.