Modelling climate change impacts on sleeper and alert weeds

Summary

This project will model the change in distribution of sleeper and environmental alert species due to climate change, and will assist in preparing a climate change weed risk map for Natural Resource Management regions across Australia.

Aims

The project aims to undertake a systematic analysis of all 28 environmental alert and all 17 agricultural sleeper weed species to determine the likely impact of climate change. This information will be combined to make a climate change weed risk map of NRM regions in Australia.

Background

Scientists are now convinced that climate is changing as a result of human-induced global warming and will continue to do so in the coming decades.  Changes in climate will provide some weeds with greater potential to spread in the future, whereas others might become less damaging than they are today because of decreased potential growth and survival.

Sleeper weeds are those plants from overseas that have currently established only small populations in Australia but that have the potential to spread widely and affect agriculture or the natural environment, while alert weeds are those that are in the early stages of establishing and have the potential to pose a significant threat to biodiversity.  Clearly the reaction of both sleeper and alert weeds to climate change is of interest to future management of the landscape.
 

This project uses climate modeling to predict the potential growth and survival of sleeper and alert species of plants in different locations, based on their responses to temperature, moisture and light.

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