Locating likely glacial forest refugia in Tasmania using palynological and ecological information to test alternative climatic models Original Research Article

Reservation planning should try to encompass those areas essential for biodiversity conservation in likely future climates, as well as the areas important today. Given that the glacial/interglacial cycles characteristic of the Quaternary are likely to continue, now widespread temperate forest types will be restricted to limited refugia in the future. Calibration of height of last glacial pollen records with contemporary vegetation types, and assumptions on the rate of spread of Nothofagus rainforest, are used to test the likelihood of a range of possible height of glacial climatic scenarios in Tasmania. These scenarios take into account changes in continentality and precipitation that seem likely to have occurred when Tasmania was a peninsula of Australia, rather than an island. The best-fitting scenario is consistent with a wide variety of evidence. It suggests that rainforest was highly restricted in height of glacial conditions, but alpine vegetation, eucalypt forest and woodland more widespread. Several apparent critical refugia for rainforest are identified.