Wood block decomposition assessment at the Warra Tall Eucalypt site is part of a global program looking at the influence of microbes and invertebrates on wood decay. A common protocol was developed exposing small (~400 cm3) pieces of a wood-substrate (untreated Pinus radiata) to the environment excluding and not-excluding macroinvertebrates (e.g. termites) by the use of a plastic mesh.

This data set is a collection of Highly Important Papers in Ecology (HIPE). Three files are included: VoteArticles.final.csv : a comma-delimited text file with the vote assessments on the relative quality of the submitted papers (Top 10, Between 11-25, Between 26-100 or Not in the top "100") and an indication of how well each voter knew the paper (Read it, Know it or Don't know it) HIP.refs.txt : tab-delimited text file with all paper bibliographic information citation.csv : a comma-delimited text file with the citation data (Google Scholar, Web of Knowledge) for each paper and each journal (Impact Factor).

In 1963, the Glen Canyon Dam, in Hite Utah was completed, creating the Lake Powell reservoir along the Colorado River. The water levels of Lake Powell peaked in 1983 and have declined since, releasing over-pressure on the underlying sediment. This release in over-pressure created mud volcanoes, structures along the shoreline made of cavities that allow fluid and gases to rise to the surface and escape. Green house gases including methane are released from these structures, and to better understand how development of natural wetlands can result in unintended increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions, we asked 1) how much of each gas is generated or and whether the amount of each gas is changing through time and 2) how are these gases forming in the subsurface? We first measured the amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and air (N) in volcano gas samples collected in 2014, 2015, and 2016. We found that from 2014 through 2016, methane levels from these volcanoes fluctuated significantly. In 2016, we looked at the amounts of carbon and hydrogen isotopes in the methane, which told us the gas is generated from microorganisms feeding on organic matter and is released during water-level fluctuations. We looked at mud volcanoes only located along the Lake Powell marina delta in Hite, Utah. The data spans geological structures restricted to one marina delta.

The lesser hairy­footed dunnart (<i>Sminthopsis youngsoni, Dasyuridae</i>) is a generalist marsupial insectivore in arid Australia, but consumes wolf spiders (<i>Lycosa spp., Lycosidae</i>) disproportionately often relative to their availability. This project tested the hypothesis that this disproportionate predation is a product of frequent encounter rates between the interactants due to high overlap in their diets and use of space and time. This data set focuses on overlap in the use of different microhabitats of wolf spiders (<i>Lycosa spp.</i>) and the lesser hairy­footed dunnart (<i>Sminthopsis youngsoni</i>) in the Simpson Desert, south­western Queensland Australia. Microhabitat use was determined by estimating the percentage cover of seven microhabitat variables and distance to nearest cover along trails left by individuals of each species­ group and a randomly orientated (control) trail for each actual trail as a measure of the availability of each microhabitat within the local environment. Trail length was also recorded and data was collected across 16 trapping grids at Main Camp during July and October (winter and Spring) in 2017. Differences in microhabitat use between trail types (actual vs control) and species (lycosids vs dunnarts) were assessed using non­metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and permutational analyses of variance (PERMANOVA). These analyses were performed using this data.

Wood block decomposition assessment at the Alice Mulga site is part of a global program looking at the influence of microbes and invertebrates on wood decay. A common protocol was developed exposing small (~400 cm3) pieces of a wood-substrate (untreated Pinus radiata) to the environment excluding and not-excluding macroinvertebrates (e.g. termites) by the use of a plastic mesh.

Plant material decomposition in soil was investigated using two types of tea bags (Green and Rooibos) buried to 8 cm for 80-90 days across seven TERN Ecosystem Process monitoring sites between 2016 - 2017. The sites included: Great Western Woodlands, Robson Creek Rainforest, Samford Peri-Urban, Cumberland Plain, Cape Tribulation, Warra Tall Eucalypt and Tumbarumba Wet Eucalypt sites. Weight loss of tea bags was determined and contextual data collected.

Wood block decomposition assessment at theTumbarumba Wet Eucalypt site is part of a global program looking at the influence of microbes and invertebrates on wood decay. A common protocol was developed exposing small (~400 cm3) pieces of a wood-substrate (untreated Pinus radiata) to the environment excluding and not-excluding macroinvertebrates (e.g. termites) by the use of a plastic mesh.

Invertebrates dominate the animal world in terms of abundance, diversity and biomass and play critical roles in maintaining ecosystem function. Despite their obvious importance, disproportionate research attention remains focused on vertebrates, with knowledge and understanding of invertebrate ecology still lacking. Due to their inherent advantages, usage of camera traps in ecology has risen dramatically over the last three decades, especially for research on mammals. However, few studies have used cameras to reliably detect fauna such as invertebrates or used cameras to examine specific aspects of invertebrate ecology. Twenty-four Reconyx PC800 HyperfireTM cameras were deployed on 7th July 2016 at Main Camp and left until 12th October 2016 (98 days, or 2352 h of deployment) in the Simpson Desert, south-western Queensland, capturing 372 time-lapse images of Wolf spiders (Family Lycosidae). Images were tagged with camera location, position, angle, camera ID and presence of lycosids. Additionally, spotlight surveys were conducted in October 2016 every hour between dusk (19:30 h) and dawn (05:30 h) over three nights with a total of 352 lycosids observed. This data set was used to determine whether: 1) camera traps provide a viable method for detecting wolf spiders, 2) diel activity patterns of the spiders can be ascertained, and 3) patterns in spider activity vary with environmental conditions, specifically between burned and unburned habitats and the crests and bases of sand dunes. This data presents a useful example of the utility of cameras as a tool for determining the diel activity patterns and habitat use of larger arthropods such as wolf spiders. Please note: Camera trap images are not provided and only species occurrence records are included. Also, image files were renamed after collection, resulting in a number versus time conflict. However, dates and times of sightings provided are correct.

This dataset comprises of new, high precision radiocarbon dates for 20 mainland thylacines and 24 mainland devils. Metadata includes museum accession numbers and origin of specimens. We envision that this dataset could be used in studies of paleo-ecological reconstructions and for estimating extinction time for both devils and thylacines on mainland Australia. This dataset includes the youngest reliable fossil ages for both species on mainland Australia as per the criteria set out in Rodriguez-Rey at al (2015). <i>"Criteria for assessing the quality of Middle Pleistocene to Holocene vertebrate fossil ages."</i> Quaternary Geochronology 30 (2015): 69-79.

A total of 53 native Australian species (52x C3, 1x C4) were sampled from 22 plant families and 7 growth forms along a transect in WA spanning 9.56 degrees latitude and 6.85 degrees longitude. Samples were collected using the nationally-accepted AusPlots Rangelands methodology. Samples were stored to preserve isotopic signatures and analysed using standard techniques for mass spectroscopy, including internationally-calibrated standards. Technical replicates of 13% showed very low drift (0.07).