The Biodiversity Adaptation Transect Sydney (BATS) improves understanding of what controls the composition of ecosystems, and helps identify and monitor the drivers of change. In contrast to other transects that investigate major compositional shifts in vegetation types, the BATS is investigating environmentally driven shifts within one highly diverse vegetation type; the nutrient-poor sandstones of the Sydney basin. Quantifying turnover within one vegetation type along a short but steep gradient, enables characterization of the relative impacts of plasticity versus local adaptation within a replicated (multiple plots, multiple species), dynamic, and connected system. Experimental and observational research will uncover the mechanisms leading to evolutionary diversification, and establish predictive measures of resilience to change.
The BATS is investigating how floristic diversity changes across an environmental gradient in the Sydney region in New South Wales. The study area is between the coast (1360 mm mean annual rainfall) and the Capertee Valley, west of the Great Dividing Range (620 mm). A landscape-scale approach is being used to investigate taxonomic, functional, genetic and genomic turn-over along a natural environmental gradient. The research is being conducted in three parts:
General location |
Sydney coast to the Capertee Valley in New South Wales |
Research infrastructure themes |
Ecosystem turnover along rainfall and altitudinal gradients. Taxonomic, functional and genetic turnover along the transect. Links between phenotypic/genomic plasticity and selective response for key species across environmental gradients. |
Year Established |
2011 |
Transect Length |
200 km |
No. of plots |
36 |
Rainfall Gradient (mean annual) |
1360 mm – 620 mm |
Data type |
Vegetation abundance, traits (plant height, leaf and seed dimensions, leaf and seed characteristics) and climate (temperature) |
Temporal revisit (ideal) |
3 to 5 years |
TERN Facilities on the BATS |
AusPlots; Australian Supersite Network; Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTERN); OzFlux |
Maurizio Rossetto
Maurizio.rossetto@rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au
Australian Transect Network data are published in the TERN AEKOS Portal where it is freely available to the research community: