Environments for Butterflies in South Eastern Australia

Abstract

The East Bassian Province is among the most varied parts of Australia and is also that most changed by intensive human activities. It contains the restricted alpine/subalpine regions as the southernmost parts of the Great Dividing Range, forests dominated by sclerophyll eucalypts, southern temperate rainforests with Nothofagus, formerly extensive lowland grasslands, upland grasslands above the treeline, a diversity of sedgelands and coastal dune systems, and a generally rich and varied vegetation. Each of the above biotopes, and others, supports butterfly taxa largely dependent on, and limited to, it. Each also gives conservation concerns due to anthropogenic changes, many of them severe, over the last century or so. The climate is ‘cool temperate’ with evident seasonality, and a trend to being warmer and dryer inland than near the coast. Three major thermal zones are sometimes recognized; warm temperate, such as along the coastal plains; cool temperate, the highlands; and cold temperate, the alpine areas. The region includes Australia’s largest cities (Sydney, Melbourne), the nation’s capital (Canberra), other state capitals (Adelaide, Hobart) and a number of substantial regional centres, and well over half of Australia’s rapidly increasing human population live within this area. Catering for the needs of increasing urbanisation and residential land use, together with recreation, industry and agriculture has led to substantial and rapid changes, and the entire region falls into Graetz et al.’s (1995) broad category of ‘intensive land use’.