The physical drivers of ecosystem formation – macroclimate, lithology and landform – along with vegetation structural formations are key determinants of current ecosystem type. Each combination of these ecosystem drivers – each ‘ecological facet’ – provides a unique set of opportunities and challenges for life. <br> Management and conservation should seek to understand and take in to account these drivers of ecosystem formation. By understanding the unique combinations of these drivers management strategies can plan for their full range of variation, and conservation efforts can ensure that unique ecosystems are not lost. Unfortunately, there is currently no Australia-wide standardized map of ecological facets at management-appropriate scales. <br> By understanding the magnitude and distribution of unique combinations of these drivers, management strategies can plan for their full range of variation, and conservation efforts can ensure that unique ecosystems are not lost. Additionally, by improving our understanding of the past and present conditions that have given rise to current ecological facets this dataset could facilitate future predictive environmental modelling. Finally, this data could assisting biodiversity conservation, climate change impact studies and mitigation, ecosystem services assessment, and development planning <br> Further information about the dataset can be found at <a href="https://ternaus.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TERNSup/pages/2276130817/GEOSS+Ecosystem+Map">GEOSS Ecosystem Map,TERN Knowledge Base </a> .

This data contains soil description, bulk density and soil moisture characteristics collected at the Calperum Mallee site in 2012.

Soil collection and analysis of chemical and physical attributes was carried out at the Calperum Mallee site to provide contextual data for the Biomes of Australian Soil Environments (BASE) soil microbial diversity project.

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).

This dataset consists of measurements of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer in a semi-arid mallee ecosystem north of the River Murray near Chowilla using eddy covariance techniques. <br /> <br /> The Calperum Chowilla site was established in July 2010 and is managed by the University of Adelaide (UA), coordinated by Prof Wayne Meyer and Prof David Chittleborough of the Landscape Futures Program as part of the Environment Institute. This is a former sheep grazing property that has been destocked and is being managed as a conservation area in this type of ecosystem. The landscape is flat with a series of low east–west sand dunes. The dunes are remnants of a previous dry era and are mostly now stabilised by mallee (multi-stemmed Eucalypt trees) and various shrubs. It is a semi-arid environment fringing the River Murray floodplains of the Riverland.<br />For additional site information, see http://www.landscapescience.org/. <br /><br /> This data is also available at http://data.ozflux.org.au .

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.

Leaf traits for 11 populations of <i>Dodonaea viscosa</i> subsp. <i>angustissima</i> (Sapindaceae) opportunistically collected from across an elevational gradient (300 to 800 m above sea level) in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. We present leaf traits for 266 individuals. Traits measured include leaf area and specific leaf area, and elevation.

The qualities of these data include: (i) sound experimental design to detect a change between confounding factors, (ii) large sample size, (iii) microchipped animals, (iv) validated heamatological processing on the wild Australian lizard Tiliqua rugosa involving a collaboration between wildlife ecologists and veterinary scientists. Its reuse potential may involve a comparative analysis of body size, haematological parameters with other long-lived, medium-sized lizards, ectoparasite studies (Aponomma hydrosauri, Amblyomma libatum) for different host populations, and background justification for ecotoxicological (pesticide) studies in farmland. Using a using a multivariate, one-way nested Type I PERMANCOVA (analysis of covariance) design, body size, blood samples and ectoparasite presence was collected on a total of 119 animals from two different populations in southern Australia. One population was from an intensively managed cropping environment and one was from an adjacent a less intensively managed grazing environment. This study took place in extensive rangelands and the fragmented landscapes of the South Australian Murray Mallee cereal cropland in southern Australia. Adult and juvenile T. rugosa were captured for sampling at one rangeland (baseline) site and three severely modified (severe) landscape-scaled sites (LS1, LS2, LS3) over a large area (68 km × 84 km or 571,200 ha) across the croplands. Two animal sampling designs were used to collect data on physiological health (Design 1: Baseline vs Severe and Design 2 - Severe only). Data collected: Record No., Animal No., Treatment, Habitat Type, Landscape No., Connectivity Class, Age Class, Linear Body Size Index (LBSI), Heterophil (H) Field of View, Heterophil per microlitre, Total White Blood Cell Count, Absolute Heterophil Count, % Heterophil Count, Absolute Lymphocyte (L) Count, % Lymphocytes, H:L Ratio (Absolute), H:L Ratio (%), Absolute Monocytes, % Monocytes , Absolute Other Granulocytes , % Other Granulocytes, % Polychromasia, Snout-Vent Length (mm), Total No. Ectoparasites per Animal.

We established a common garden experiment within a 238 ha restoration site owned and managed by the South Australian Water Corporation (SA Water), near the township of Clarendon (-35.0882°S, 138.6236°E). We grew ca. 1500 seedlings sourced from one local and two non-local provenances of <i>Eucalyptus leucoxylon</i> to test whether local provenancing was appropriate. The three provenances spanned an aridity gradient, with the local provenance sourced from the most mesic area and the distant from the most arid. We explored the effect of provenance on four fitness proxies after 15 months, including survival, above-ground height, susceptibility to insect herbivory, and pathogen related stress.

Wood block decomposition assessment at the Calperum Mallee 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.