Risk Status of Australia's Alpine and Subalpine Ecosystems

ABSTRACT Alpine and subalpine ecosystems are threatened by changing climate and disturbance regimes because they exist under extreme geographical and climatic conditions. Understanding the threats to and risk status of alpine and subalpine ecosystems is vital to guide their conservation, inform monitoring programs and identify the relative impact of activities currently degrading these ecosystems. We applied the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems criteria to 15 alpine and subalpine ecosystem types across Australian mountains. We found that seven ecosystem types were classified as threatened and three as Near Threatened, together accounting for 83% of the alpine and subalpine region. The primary threats were climate change and associated changes in fire regimes. There were insufficient data to quantify the environmental or biotic integrity of six ecosystem types, and one ecosystem type was listed as Data Deficient overall. Our study highlighted key knowledge gaps in the integrity of alpine and subalpine systems that limited our capacity to reliably assess risk to these ecosystems. We recommend expanding on‐ground monitoring of ecosystem integrity to improve understanding of risks, key threats and actions to mitigate them. To reduce risks to these ecosystems, climate change must be aggressively mitigated, collateral pressures from invasive plants and animals must be reduced, and critical knowledge gaps that will allow conservation action prioritisation must be quickly filled. These strategies should be co‐ordinated, resourced and enacted urgently in cross‐jurisdictional Alps‐wide work plans.

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Publication Details

Journal
Austral Ecology
Published
2026-04-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.70214
Primary Topic
Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Risk Status of Australia's Alpine and Subalpine Ecosystems

Emily Nicholson, Ken Green, Brodie Verrall, Jennie Whinam et al.
Austral Ecology
Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond
article

Risk Status of Australia's Alpine and Subalpine Ecosystems

Emily Nicholson, Ken Green, Brodie Verrall, Jennie Whinam, José R. Ferrer‐Paris, Jessica A. Rowland, David A. Keith, Kate D. L. Umbers, Matt White, John W. Morgan, Genevieve Wright, Dick Williams, Annette Muir, Rebecca Lester, Susanna Venn, Jayne Balmer, Tracey Regan, Nicholas Murray, Arn Tolsma, Keith McDougall, Michael Traurig, Ella Plumanns‐Pouton, Clare Vernon, Jamie Kirkpatrick, Calvin K. F. Lee, Emma Sumner, Courtney Taylor, Chloe Sato, Anikó Toth, James Camac
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Alpine and subalpine ecosystems are threatened by changing climate and disturbance regimes because they exist under extreme geographical and climatic conditions. Understanding the threats to and risk status of alpine and subalpine ecosystems is vital to guide their conservation, inform monitoring programs and identify the relative impact of activities currently degrading these ecosystems. We applied the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems criteria to 15 alpine and subalpine ecosystem types across Australian mountains. We found that seven ecosystem types were classified as threatened and three as Near Threatened, together accounting for 83% of the alpine and subalpine region. The primary threats were climate change and associated changes in fire regimes. There were insufficient data to quantify the environmental or biotic integrity of six ecosystem types, and one ecosystem type was listed as Data Deficient overall. Our study highlighted key knowledge gaps in the integrity of alpine and subalpine systems that limited our capacity to reliably assess risk to these ecosystems. We recommend expanding on‐ground monitoring of ecosystem integrity to improve understanding of risks, key threats and actions to mitigate them. To reduce risks to these ecosystems, climate change must be aggressively mitigated, collateral pressures from invasive plants and animals must be reduced, and critical knowledge gaps that will allow conservation action prioritisation must be quickly filled. These strategies should be co‐ordinated, resourced and enacted urgently in cross‐jurisdictional Alps‐wide work plans.

Austral EcologyVol. 51(5)
Australian National University (AU), University of Tasmania (AU), Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research (AU), Deakin University (AU), The University of Melbourne (AU), La Trobe University (AU), Queensland Government (AU), Director of National Parks (AU), Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications (ES), Department for Environment and Water (AU), International Union for Conservation of Nature (CH), Ecosystem Sciences (AU), Monash University (AU), Western Sydney University (AU), James Cook University (AU), University of Hong Kong (HK)
Deakin University, Australian Research Council
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond
DOISourceOpenAlex
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