Conserving threatened and degraded ecosystems is essential for biodiversity conservation and improved human wellbeing (CBD-SBSTTA, 2017). Effective ecosystem management is pivotal for their persistence, protection and recovery (Valderrábano et al., 2021) and conservation outcomes can be improved when management is underpinned by scientific evidence (Walsh et al., 2015). Evidence-based decision-making can promote the selection of beneficial and timely interventions (Salafsky et al., 2019; Sutherland et al., 2019), which requires the effectiveness of conservation interventions to be understood. Yet evaluation of conservation outcomes is often limited, resulting in knowledge gaps about the effectiveness of interventions, and improving ecological and social issues that can influence management decisions. Closing the knowledge gaps that can impede effective conservation is essential for improving threatened ecosystem management.
Communication and collaboration among knowledge generators and users are central to evidence-based decision-making (McNie, 2007; Pullin et al., 2020). However, opportunities for documenting experiences and knowledge gaps and identifying research priorities are often scarce, especially where ecosystems span multiple jurisdictions. Outcomes of management by land managers or consultants are often unavailable to researchers or managers in other jurisdictions, or are not followed-up or recorded (Sutherland et al., 2013). Likewise, published studies may be inaccessible beyond academia (Pullin & Knight, 2005). Cogeneration of research priorities by multiple stakeholders ensures research agendas align with the needs of managers and decision-makers (Cvitanovic et al., 2016; Nguyen et al., 2017). It also ensures findings are accessible and efforts and lessons are not duplicated (Walsh et al., 2019).
Expert elicitation—formally collating and recording the knowledge of experts—can be a useful approach to understand research priorities for stakeholders. Structured expert-elicitation approaches, such as horizon scanning, involve convening experts to identify potential research questions and then collaboratively refine and prioritize these questions (Kark et al., 2016). Such approaches have been used in conservation to identify research priorities for coastal marine microbiomes (Trevathan-Tackett et al., 2019), inform national conservation strategies (Fleishman et al., 2011), and prioritize island biodiversity monitoring (Peyton et al., 2022). Research prioritization is not yet widely used for threatened ecosystem conservation, despite threatened ecosystems being of increasing global interest (CBD-SBSTTA, 2017).
We conducted a research prioritization exercise to identify knowledge gaps for conserving a threatened ecosystem spanning four jurisdictions—Australian Alpine Sphagnum Bogs and Associated Fens (hereafter, alpine peatlands) (Figure 1). This is a nationally threatened ecological community in Australia (DEWHA, 2009) that provides habitat for endemic and threatened species and has a strong cultural value (DOTE, 2015). Peatlands contain unique biodiversity and provide valuable services (e.g., protect water quality, store carbon) and are threatened globally (Parish et al., 2008). Alpine peatlands are subject to many persistent and emerging threats, from climate change to human activities (Pickering & Hill, 2007). For example, climate change is predicted to substantially alter the moisture balance in alpine peatlands, putting the ecosystem at risk of collapsing (Regan et al., 2020). Despite national and global recognition that alpine peatlands are imperiled, challenges remain for effective conservation due to a knowledge deficit. There is evidence for the effectiveness of management to recover peatland ecosystems globally (Rowland et al., 2021; Taylor et al., 2018), yet it is unclear how this relates to Australian alpine ecosystems as they included few studies from that region. There is therefore a clear need to identify the key research needs over the next 10–20 years to enable and support Australian alpine peatland recovery and persistence under mounting threats.
FIGURE 1. An alpine peatland on the Bogong High Plains, Australia. Source: Joslin Moore.
We assembled policy advisers, land managers and researchers to identify long-term research priorities for alpine peatland conservation in Australia. We collated participants' experiences and perspectives on the key current and future threats to the ecosystem, the effectiveness of management, the overarching challenges hindering effective conservation, and insights needed to overcome these challenges. This information was used to assess the knowledge landscape across jurisdictions and generate 159 potential research questions. We then selected 25 research questions as priorities for conservation-focused research over the next 20 years. While focused on a single case study, our approach provides a strategic framework to highlight knowledge gaps and management needs for conserving other threatened ecosystems.
METHODSWe used an established process for convening groups across sectors and jurisdictions to identify research priorities and collaboratively shape conservation agendas (i.e., horizon scanning) (Kark et al., 2016). Horizon scanning is traditionally used to identify emerging threats (Sutherland et al., 2011), but provides a valuable approach for identifying research priorities (Kennicutt et al., 2015; Trevathan-Tackett et al., 2019). Our process followed the modified Delphi method—a structured expert-elicitation approach—described in Sutherland et al. (2011) (Figure 2). We conducted interviews to gather information on challenges for effective peatland conservation and key management needs (i.e., the information, tools and frameworks still needed for effective conservation). Over three 3-h virtual workshops and three online surveys in February 2021, participants used the challenges and management needs identified during the interviews as inspiration to brainstorm knowledge gaps limiting management of Australian alpine peatlands and then voted for the 25 highest priority research questions to support conservation management (Figure 2).
FIGURE 2. Process for identifying priority research questions. Participant numbers varied among stages due to differences in participant availability.
Australian alpine peatlands span the Australian Alps on mainland Australia and the Central Highlands in Tasmania and are predominantly on public lands managed by government agencies (DOTE, 2015). Therefore, we invited participants from the stakeholder groups that actively manage the peatlands: government-associated land managers, policymakers/advisers, and researchers and consultants who advise the agencies regarding threats and appropriate management. Our approach is consistent with other research prioritizations for conservation issues that targeted these stakeholder groups (e.g., Trevathan-Tackett et al., 2019).
Prospective participants were identified through personal contacts, literature, management agency websites, or were suggested by other experts. Of the 53 prospective participants contacted via email or phone, 33 participated, including researchers (n = 15), managers (19, across state and federal government departments and land management agencies) and/or consultants (2) (several participants fit multiple categories). Participants worked across all relevant jurisdictions (Australian Capital Territory [ACT] = 10; New South Wales = 11; Victoria = 14; Tasmania = 5; Australia-wide = 4; some participants worked across multiple states).
Identifying research questionsOne-on-one semi-structured interviews (49 ± 13 min; mean ± SD) were conducted (by J.R.) with 24 participants to identify emerging challenges to peatland conservation. Participants were asked about: (i) key threats; (ii) their experience and perceptions of the effectiveness and relevance of management interventions in Australia; (iii) their perceptions of key management challenges; (iv) insights needed to overcome challenges; and (v) information sources that inform their management (Supporting Information Appendix S1.1).
Interviews were transcribed professionally and checked for accuracy. The first author (J.R.) coded and synthesized the relevant interview data into current and emerging threats, management challenges and requirements to address these (i.e., management needs; Table S2). Research questions were formulated (by J.R. and interviewees) to fill gaps identified by participants reflecting on the threats, management challenges, and management needs. The resulting lists of management challenges, needs and research questions were collated into six themes to facilitate editing and consolidation of similar questions and assist participants to navigate the lists during the workshops (Taylor et al., 2021; Trevathan-Tackett et al., 2019): (i) ecosystem understanding; (ii) climate change; (iii) wildfire; (iv) introduced species; (v) interventions and management plans; and (vi) societal factors limiting effective conservation.
Three workshops were held over 3 weeks. During the first workshop, participants reviewed and revised the management challenges, needs, and used this information to identify additional questions. Participants did this over three 30-min sessions across five themed discussion groups (wildfire and invasive species were combined into one group). Experts choose their group to ensure they could contribute to the theme/s where they had the most expertize, but could move across themes over the multiple sessions. After the first workshop, participants were sent the list of questions and asked to anonymously submit additional questions via an online survey (Google Forms). At this stage, the questions under societal factors were reallocated to other themes due to the high thematic overlap.
Prioritizing research questionsDuring the second workshop, participants in self-allocated themed discussion groups revised the list of questions by merging similar questions, separating complex questions, and rewording questions to fit our criteria of a well formulated question (Supporting Information Appendix S1.2). The criteria were based on horizon scanning methods (Sutherland et al., 2011) and were used to ensure that important and timely questions to enhance peatland management were identified.
To identify the 25 priority questions, we followed established methods of horizon scanning for research prioritization (Kennicutt et al., 2015; Sutherland et al., 2010). After the second workshop, all participants were invited to anonymously vote for their 20 most important questions (of 72; Supporting Information Appendix S3) using an online survey (Google Forms). Based on the distribution of votes, questions were categorized as gold (≥9 votes; n = 15), silver (7 or 8 votes; n = 19) or bronze (≤6 votes; n = 38) (Supporting Information Appendix S1.3). Categorizing questions helped participants focus on those that most people thought were priorities (i.e., gold and silver questions), and spend less time on the less important questions (bronze questions) (Kennicutt et al., 2015).
During a plenary session in the third workshop, gold and silver questions were reviewed to identify questions to merge or refine. The reviewed gold questions (n = 13) were then included in the final set of research priorities. Twenty-two participants then identified bronze questions they thought should be reclassified as silver via group consensus, after which the remaining bronze questions were discarded. Finally, 14 participants voted via an anonymous online survey for their top 10 questions out of the remaining silver questions (n = 16). The 12 silver questions receiving the most votes were added to the list of gold questions to produce the final 25 questions.
PRIORITY RESEARCH QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS CONSERVATION CHALLENGESThe 25 priority research questions identified to address knowledge gaps and management needs for Australian alpine peatlands reflected a need to quantify and manage specific threats (climate change: 5 questions; wildfire: 3; introduced species: 3), evaluate management effectiveness generally (5) and enhance our understanding of peatlands (9) (Figure 3). We present the questions in a nonprioritized order as the final list collectively represents the priorities (Kennicutt et al., 2015), along with discussion of current knowledge and why each question was chosen. Themes with more questions indicated that participants identified more pressing gaps limiting management in these themes.
FIGURE 3. Top 25 research questions identified to support Australian alpine peatland conservation. The questions are not ranked in priority order, but instead grouped and ordered thematically. Some questions covered multiple themes, shown by the symbols.
Climate change is the major long-term threat to alpine landscapes (Harris et al., 2016; IPCC, 2014). They are predicted to become warmer and dryer, with more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and severe fire weather (Hennessy et al., 2005). Alpine climates are already altering, and these changes will likely increase over the next century (Bhend et al., 2012; Hughes, 2003). In alpine peatlands, climate change is predicted to substantially alter the hydrological conditions (Hughes, 2003), and thus vegetation persistence, peat-formation (Hope et al., 2009), and carbon storage (Karis et al., 2016; Silvester et al., 2021). Consequently, competitive dynamics may shift among native and introduced species as habitat suitability changes (Duursma et al., 2013; Petitpierre et al., 2016; Pickering et al., 2004), driving peatlands to be replaced by dry grassland or shrubland as dryland species migrate from lower altitudes and adjacent drier ecosystems (Duursma et al., 2013; Pickering et al., 2004). Despite uncertainties in the magnitude and speed of climatic changes, the inevitability of higher temperatures and hydrological change (especially reduced snow cover) necessitates forward thinking about adaptively managing these climate-sensitive ecosystems and minimizing climate change impacts (Harris et al., 2016). These broad climate and ecological predictions outlined above can be useful to forecast general trends of ecosystem change, yet the fine-scale impacts of climate change on Australian alpine climates (Harris et al., 2016) and thus peatlands, are largely undefined.
We identified five questions that the experts deemed important to support informed proactive management. One knowledge gap was understanding which peatland features and processes are most vulnerable to climatic changes (Q1). In particular, the impact of changed water regimes on alpine peatland hydrological conditions was highlighted as a key question (Q2). Peatlands require specific hydrological conditions to support peat-forming species and processes (Minayeva & Sirin, 2012), notably, a water table close to the soil surface (Keith et al., 2020). Climate change is expected to alter alpine water regimes, including precipitation, upslope inputs, streamflow, and snow cover (Harris et al., 2016). This will likely affect peatland hydrology and the capacity of alpine peatlands to persist.
Enhancing our understanding of ecosystem-specific changes under climate change is pivotal to estimating the spatial variation in vulnerability to these changes (Q3), and the projected timeframe within which peatlands are likely to persist (Q4). Peatlands may vary in their resilience to changes in the mean climate and climate extremes due to differences in their geographic location, ecosystem attributes (e.g., peat depth, vegetation structure and composition, disturbance history, condition) and context within the broader landscape (Clarke et al., 2015; Wahren et al., 2001, 1999). Experts therefore deemed it essential to determine which interventions can increase peatland resilience under climate change and/or slow their rate of ecological response, and under which circumstances intervention may be needed (Q5).
Answering these questions would inform experts about which peatland features are most at risk and provide a timeframe for persistence of peatlands under climate change. This information would enable managers to adjust conservation objectives to align with projected rates of climate change and ecological response, and prioritize interventions and resources to maximize the resilience and persistence of viable peatlands (Love et al., 2019).
Increased wildfiresFires have been historically infrequent in Australian alpine peatlands (Carr & Turner, 1959), but changing fire regimes are a growing threat, with more frequent and severe wildfires predicted under climate change (Clarke & Evans, 2019; Hughes, 2003; Pickering, 2007). The impact of fire on alpine peatlands is well established; they are highly vulnerable to degradation from high-intensity fires, especially after a long drought (Good et al., 2010). Fire can remove vegetation to create bare ground (increasing erosion and weed invasions) (Whinam et al., 2010), consume peat (Prior et al., 2020), produce dry, hydrophobic soils (Hope et al., 2009), and drive shifts to dry grassland or shrubland (Camac et al., 2017). Recovery of alpine peatlands after lower-intensity fires can take decades (Clarke et al., 2015; McDougall, 2007), and the predicted increase in fires will reduce the time available for recovery between successive fires (Clarke et al., 2015). Peat is more combustible under drought conditions (Prior et al., 2020), which are increasing in frequency under climate change (Hughes, 2003). There has already been an unusually large number of significant fires in alpine areas over the past 20 years (Hoffmann et al., 2019; Nolan et al., 2020; van Oldenborgh et al., 2020). Consequently, the more frequent firefighting activities (e.g., driving machinery, digging, and spreading foam or fire retardants) indirectly impact peatlands exposed to higher fire risks (DOTE, 2015).
Local management cannot reduce the increasing number of high fire-risk days, thus must focus on minimizing burning risk, increasing peatland resilience to burning, reducing fire damage, and supporting recovery. A priority for the experts was to identify which interventions and protocols are effective and practical to avoid peat ignition and/or minimize burn damage (Q6). Initial studies show varied effectiveness among interventions to minimize fire damage. Identifying peatlands on fire management maps and protocols can reduce or avoid damage during emergency responses (personal communication Jenny Lawrence, Kathy Eyles, 2021). Protecting peatlands from burning using mechanical methods (e.g., constructing fire breaks in adjacent ecosystems) (White, 2012) or applying flame retardants and foams (e.g., in Indonesia: Subekti et al., 2017) can effectively slow fire spread, but with trade-offs for ecosystem condition (Hope et al., 2012; White, 2012). Retaining water has been suggested as the best way to protect alpine peatlands (Hope et al., 2012). Further trials are needed to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of these interventions, which may vary among contexts (e.g., type and speed of fire). Knowledge of which interventions are most suitable in different contexts would support rapid and robust management decisions by management agencies.
Knowledge gaps in postfire recovery were also identified as high-priority research needs. Evaluation of interventions that enhance postfire recovery is still in its infancy but was identified as sorely needed (Q7). While the effects of postfire interventions (e.g., active revegetation, rewetting, shade cloths, and fertilizers) on peatland vegetation have been explored (Clarke & Evans, 2019; Clarkson et al., 2017), effects on hydrology, animals, chemical properties, and peat-formation are unstudied (except preliminary impacts of rewetting on hydrology: Hope et al., 2005).
Increasing prefire and postfire monitoring is critical for informing management goals (i.e., establishing baseline conditions or recovery targets) and quantifying the effectiveness of interventions by comparing burnt sites with and without active intervention. Such studies should ideally use BACI design (before-after-control-impact) method to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation interventions (Conner et al., 2015). This BACI design requires monitoring of sites with and without the intervention, both before and after the intervention is employed. Establishing which interventions (if any) are most effective would enable targeted and effective management after fires.
The experts indicated that uncertainty remains about how fire severity and fire intervals influence recovery (Q8). A few studies provide preliminary information, such as soil combustibility (Prior et al., 2020), and vegetation recovery after drought (Good et al., 2010) or low intensity fires (Clarke et al., 2015; McDougall, 2007). But we lack longer-term monitoring, which in this context needs to be carried out over decades or centuries. Understanding the minimum time between burns required for peatlands to sufficiently recover and persist under different fire severity can help identify risks posed to peatlands and thus inform management. Intervention feasibility and effectiveness vary among contexts (e.g., fire severity, time-since-fire), necessitating context-specific guidelines. Filling these gaps would enable decision tools to guide prefire, during, and postfire interventions.
Introduced speciesPeatlands are threatened by a range of introduced plant and animal species that are well known to degrade peatlands. Introduced plant species (e.g., gray sallow willow, Salix cinerea; soft rush, Juncus effusus) can outcompete and replace native species, altering the vegetation structure (Hughes, 2003; Petitpierre et al., 2016), hydrology (McDougall, 2007), and nutrient balance (DOTE, 2015). Trampling and grazing by introduced hard-hoofed animals (ungulates) including cows, horses, deer, and pigs cause substantial physical damage to vegetation structure and composition (Cherubin et al., 2019), chemical properties (Duretto, 2018), soils, and hydrology (Good & Johnston, 2019; Robertson et al., 2019; Wahren et al., 2001). Introduced predators such as foxes and cats can kill threatened native animals, including the broad-toothed rat (Mastacomys fuscus) and alpine spiny crayfish (Eustacus and Engaeus spp.) (DOTE, 2015; Green & Osborne, 2003). Minimizing damage caused by introduced species is key to maintaining peatland resilience to other threats, such as climate change and wildfires (Tolsma, 2008).
Of particular concern in Australia is the impact and management of non-native ungulate species. It is relatively straightforward to eradicate livestock by revoking grazing licenses (Good & Johnston, 2019) or fencing individual peatlands (Tolsma, 2021). However, feral ungulate populations cannot easily be eliminated from alpine regions using fencing nor regulations but require population control. Given the extensive degradation these introduced species cause, the experts identified a clear need to evaluate options to reduce abundance of species that are hard to eradicate or effectively control (horses, deer) (Q9) as the current approaches have proved insufficient. Deer, for instance, are challenging to effectively manage using current techniques (Mulvaney et al., 2017), such as aerial culling, as they are cryptic and protected as a game species in some jurisdictions (DPIPWE, 2016; NSW Government, 2021; Victorian Government, 2020). In contrast, horses are challenging to manage due to political reasons—there is strong pressure from advocacy groups to protect horses and low social acceptability of lethal horse management (Williams, 2019). Current and proposed future approaches to control these species must be evaluated for the relative impact on the targeted species' populations, cost-effectiveness (e.g., for horses: Beeton & Johnson, 2019), and the resulting impact on the ecosystem. Experts thought that it was important to characterize density–impact relationships for ungulates (Q10) to identify tolerable population densities and thus levels of required investment in management (Beeton & Johnson, 2019; Yokomizo et al., 2009).
Another gap in managing introduced species surrounded the uncertainty about which invasive and range-shifting plants, animals, and pathogens are most likely to invade peatlands as climate change alters habitat suitability (Q11). Lower-altitude native and invasive species will likely shift in distribution and colonize peatlands as conditions become more suitable (Petitpierre et al., 2016). Some evidence shows that non-peatland species are already invading peatlands (Beeton & Johnson, 2019; Yokomizo et al., 2009), but it is uncertain which taxa pose the greatest threat of invasion and subsequent impact. Several preliminary studies have begun to answer this question, such as the Weed Futures project (
Effective, evidence-based conservation is key to supporting the recovery of threatened ecosystems (Sutherland et al., 2004). A recent rapid review of global literature revealed that two interventions (rewetting and active revegetation) have been widely used and shown to be effective (Rowland et al., 2021). However, little Australian literature was incorporated and the effectiveness of interventions in Australia remains unclear. The experts identified that interventions to restore and maintain peatland hydrology are increasingly important given the predicted warming and drying under climate change (Harris et al., 2016). In particular, further studies are needed to examine the use of rewetting to support peatlands during drought or long dry periods (Q12), beyond only those affected by fire. Peatlands need to retain water to maintain the hydrology (Threatened Species Scientific Committee, 2009). Dry periods can occur due to a range of threats, including drought, fires, and damage from infrastructure. Various techniques have successfully been used in Europe (Karofeld et al., 2017; Stratford & Acreman, 2016), North America (Chimner et al., 2017; Lamers et al., 2015), and Asia (Yang et al., 2017) to restore and maintain wetness, such as damming, installing water storage infrastructure, or small-scale reprofiling to alter water flow (Rowland et al., 2021). Rewetting is not widely used in Australia, although a few studies have examined the capacity of rewetting to restore hydrological conditions in peatlands after an extensive wildfire in 2003 (Carey, 2005; Clarkson et al., 2017; Whinam et al., 2010), and further trials are underway in fire-damaged peatlands in the ACT (personal communication N. McLean).
The experts identified that our knowledge of ways to actively revegetate after disturbances is inadequate (Q13). Peatland plant species may have variable responses to and capacity to recover after disturbances (Corbett, 2010). Active revegetation is time and resource intensive (Chimner et al., 2017) and may be infeasible to undertake for all species, across all alpine peatlands affected by drier conditions in the future. Identifying which species are unable or less able to naturally recover can support targeted revegetation practices for those species to promote fast recovery of the community. A few studies were undertaken on the effectiveness of recovery techniques for some species, mostly Sphagnum moss (Clarkson et al., 2017) and Carex sedges (Good et al., 2010), but studies are lacking for other species.
Identifying the roadblocks hindering effective management is critical to improving conservation success. One such barrier identified by the experts was the need to identify which species and features are useful indicators of peatland condition for informing management priority setting (Q14). The experts also identified that mechanisms to share ecological and management knowledge among researchers, managers, and decision-makers were inadequate, posing a major barrier to effective management (Q15). Effective knowledge sharing plays a crucial role in ensuring best-practice management (Fazey et al., 2013), and is a priority issue for peatland conservation. For example, a useful approach may be establishing systems to enhance active collaboration and knowledge transfer across jurisdictions to bring together theoretical and technical expertise from catchment management authorities, land management agencies, universities, developers, and private industries. Establishing a peatland knowledge network, employing research scientists in management agencies, and establishing formal relationships between scientists and decision-makers could facilitate knowledge exchange (Cook et al., 2013), and these mechanisms could be led by knowledge brokers or boundary organizations, such as the national recovery team. To support knowledge exchange, we (the authors) developed an accessible evidence base of the effectiveness of interventions in different contexts. The Australian Alpine Peatland Annotated Bibliography of Conservation Management Interventions is a repository of reports, published papers and book chapters on the effectiveness of interventions used in Australian alpine peatlands. It includes documents describing the threats, ecology, and policy relating to Australian alpine peatlands. The repository provides a summary of each document and is available on the Atlas of Living Australia's BioCollect website (
Another roadblock for peatland conservation identified by experts was the limited public and political support for the management of important threats, particularly cattle grazing and feral horses (Williams, 2019). Participants thought it was a priority to determine how innovations and insights from psychology and conservation marketing (Ryan et al., 2019) could be used to better inform the public and decision-makers of the negative impacts of threats (Q16). Public perceptions of peatlands vary from attractive landscapes to wastelands (Regan et al., 2020). This is partly driven by a lack of awareness of the value of peatlands (and wetlands in general) for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, with flow-on effects for funding (often short term and driven by political cycles). Peatlands have multiple user groups with differing interests (e.g., Indigenous culture, conservation, recreation, water harvesting, livestock grazing), representing a significant management challenge to avoid conflicts (Byg et al., 2017). Horse management, for example, is contentious, and currently causing social conflict, with some jurisdictions protecting them on cultural grounds despite evidence of substantial ecosystem degradation (see Introduced species) (Slattery, 2019). Participants identified that building public and political support requires raising public awareness and understanding of peatland value through effective communication.
Ecosystem understandingUnderstanding peatland dynamics underscores effective management (Rowland et al., 2021). Most studies on peatland functioning focus on northern hemisphere peatlands (Rowland et al., 2021). While many features and processes are common among peatlands (Keith et al., 2020), some are unique to Australian peatlands (Hope et al., 2012), necessitating targeted research and monitoring ecosystem responses to management. The first step in developing monitoring programs is to determine which ecological variables are most informative of condition (see Q14). To complement this, experts sought a nationally consistent set of indicators of peatland health and definitions of ecosystem states (current, collapsed, recovered) (Q17). Monitoring to date has primarily focused on recovery of characteristic vegetation (Clarke et al., 2015; McDougall, 2007; Wahren et al., 2001), yet a whole-systems approach to conservation and thus monitoring is critical (Rowland et al., 2021). The nationally threatened ecological community listing (DEWHA, 2009) and recent IUCN Red List of Ecosystems assessment (Regan et al., 2020) may go some way to address this issue as these documents identify key ecosystem features and processes. A preliminary monitoring framework is now in development in the ACT (personal communication N. McLean) that may provide a useful model for other jurisdictions. Such a framework would be useful for defining ecosystem states to inform risk assessments and enable setting decision triggers to prompt management (Q18). Setting clear management triggers (Cook et al., 2016) and aligning these with guidelines for interventions would enable timely identification of vulnerable peatlands and a rapid response to declining condition. Effectively combining approaches to manage and monitor species, hydrology, and underground processes would support informed management of these complex systems (Q19), including using newly developed remote-sensing methods (Pettorelli et al., 2018).
The information from these three questions is vital to developing a national classification system and associated map of peatlands. A standard national approach to classifying peatlands into an ecosystem typology and mapping peatlands (enhancing the current national map: DEWHA, 2008) was a top priority for the experts as it would provide a consistent understanding of peatlands across Australia (Q20). Each State Government has a different approach to classifying peatlands, remote-sensing methods, and mapping techniques (Ling et al., 2018), resulting in incomparable classifications.
Several priority questions focused on improving our theoretical and empirical understanding of poorly studied ecosystem components to enhance knowledge outputs for management and risk assessment. High-priority knowledge gaps included the composition and function of soil biota (specifically in transforming vegetation into peat) (Q21), magnitude of carbon storage (Q22), and the capacity to predict hydrological responses at local and landscape scales (Q23, Q24). Peatlands are immensely carbon-rich ecosystems (Page & Baird, 2016), yet the maximum potential carbon storage and sequestration capacity of Australian alpine peatlands, and capacity in their current condition, are largely unknown. This capacity is likely to vary under different future scenarios of restoration (i.e., where peat-formation processes are reinstated) and degradation (e.g., by fire, which releases carbon stores). Little is also known about how water moves through alpine and montane landscapes, yet these systems are important for discharging and filtering water (Cowley et al., 2020). Monitoring and modeling can improve our understanding of the landscape-scale processes that maintain the hydrological regimes supporting peatlands and thus the role that peatlands play in the broader landscape. These methods can also help identify the areas beyond peatlands needed to support peatland hydrology and persistence. As mentioned in Q17 and Q18, this information is fundamental to setting ecologically meaningful management goals based on ecosystem dynamics, identifying benchmarks (e.g., recovered and collapsed states) to support condition reporting, and triggering management by identifying vulnerable peatlands.
How numerous threats interact and their cumulative impacts on peatlands (Q25) was viewed by the experts as limiting our capacity to effectively conserve peatlands; multiple threats often affect peatlands, and these threats are likely to have interacting effects. For example, climate change will likely increase the frequency and severity of wildfires and enhance species invasions (Petitpierre et al., 2016), while introduced ungulates can enhance weed invasion by creating bare ground and acting as vectors for seeds (DOTE, 2015). Understanding these synergistic effects is important for identifying the threat posed to the ecosystem and identifying appropriate management responses.
SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSIONSOur paper provides a research roadmap codesigned by land managers, researchers, and policy advisers to inform a strategic research agenda to enhance conservation of a threatened ecosystem. The 25 priority research questions span multidisciplinary topics and are intended to address the challenges hindering peatland conservation. Simply answering these questions would not solve all issues, but the knowledge gained would provide significant guidance on how to effectively implement a national recovery strategy (DOTE, 2015). We hope the questions will be used by government agencies to guide research investment over the next decade. We also hope these questions will inspire researchers to focus on these issues if they wish for their work to directly contribute to effective management. Although likely not a comprehensive list, the questions reflect the views of a broad base of key stakeholders involved in peatland conservation across jurisdictions. Ideally, this process would be repeated after 10 years to evaluate the uptake of progress toward answering the research questions by the research community and identify new threats and priority research questions that have emerged.
We highlighted an urgent need for research to inform conservation under climate change and changes to hydrological and fire regimes in Australia, although this research will likely be relevant to peatlands around the world. Understanding the impacts of climate change is of concern across peatlands in tropical (Leng et al., 2019), temperate (Joosten, 2015), mountainous (Keith et al., 2014), and artic regions (Quante & Colijn, 2016). The increasing occurrence of wildfires in peatlands is particularly alarming (e.g., unprecedented wildfires in Arctic peatlands; Witze, 2020), and may worsen climate change through feedbacks if peatlands shift from carbon sinks to carbon sources. Establishing effective management to protect peatlands from burning and enhance recovery postfire will be vital to conserving these vulnerable ecosystems worldwide. Fewer questions focused on invasive species management, suggesting the past strong research focus on this threat has improved our understanding in Australia (Rowland et al., 2023). However, identifying range-shifting species under climate change was a major concern for Australian experts, and has also been identified as an issue of global concern for mountain ecosystems (e.g., in Europe: Grzybowski & Glińska-Lewczuk, 2020; Petitpierre et al., 2016).
Many questions were motivated by improving understanding of peatland features and processes and how to best manage their conservation and recovery. Overall, our paper emphasizes that effective conservation requires a whole-systems approach (Rowland et al., 2021) to manage diverse ecosystem responses to various threats. To fill knowledge gaps about the most effective approaches, experts can look to research conducted globally as a foundation. For example, there is a wealth of global literature on the effectiveness of rewetting (Taylor et al., 2018) which could inform its use in Australia. Yet our study identified knowledge gaps in the global literature for how to mitigate and recover after climate-driven threats, such as using rewetting peatlands to prevent wildfires (Taylor et al., 2018).
In addition to the ecological knowledge gaps, we identified several social, political, and practical barriers to peatland conservation, of which could benefit from further research. Although peatlands are nationally threatened (DEWHA, 2009), tensions endure about their management and there is minimal public understanding about the severity of degradation from manageable threats (Williams, 2019). The process revealed the necessity of aligning measurable management goals and targeted monitoring. This requires ongoing, reliable funding for long-term monitoring and proactive management. Experts identified that government willingness to commit resources to ecosystem conservation (and alpine peatlands in particular) would likely be enhanced by improving public understanding of the essential role of peatlands in supporting biodiversity and human wellbeing. Answering many of these research questions will require interdisciplinary research teams and collaboration across jurisdictions. Establishing mechanisms to support active collaboration among organizations will likely enhance knowledge exchange, convene diverse expertize, and ensure a unified approach to peatland conservation.
Our approach may be used to identify knowledge gaps important for informing conservation management of other threatened or high-priority ecosystems. However, there were two core lessons that may be useful to consider when undertaking this approach, especially in a virtual setting. First, each activity scheduled during the workshops took longer than expected. Horizon scanning is often conducted in-person over several days (e.g., Kennicutt et al., 2015). Our workshops were virtual, where the activities were divided into three half-day sessions over several weeks with several breaks in each workshop, to ensure people remained engaged for the duration of the meeting. Our process would have benefited from allocating more time to each activity, and perhaps running a fourth workshop to ensure the experts had sufficient time to complete all tasks, or reducing the number of aims of the workshops.
Secondly, there are benefits in maximizing the (virtual) face-to-face activities and reducing reliance on input from experts before, between or after workshops via email or online surveys. We conducted virtual face-to-face interviews before the workshops to gather the participants perspectives on key threats, experiences with management, and challenges hindering effectiveness management (Supporting Information Appendix S1). While individual interviews are time consuming for the project team, asking these targeted questions provided useful prompts for the participants that allowed us to translate the extensive responses into numerous research questions; most research questions originated from the interviews rather than via the online survey. We recommend scheduling the voting on research questions during the workshop timeslots, if possible, rather than between workshops via online surveys. This is likely to produce higher response rates and engagement, given that responses to online surveys can be limited (Wu et al., 2022).
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSJessica A. Rowland led the writing for the paper. Jessica A. Rowland, Joslin L. Moore, and Jessica C. Walsh developed and led the research prioritization process. Jessica A. Rowland, Joslin L. Moore, Jessica C. Walsh, Matthew Beitzel, Renee Brawata, Daniel Brown, Linden Chalmers, Lisa Evans, Kathryn Eyles, Rob Gibbs, Samantha Grover, Shane Grundy, Rebecca M. B. Harris, Shayne Haywood, Mairi Hilton, Geoffrey Hope, Ben Keaney, Marie Keatley, David A. Keith, Ruth Lawrence, Maiko L. Lutz, Trish MacDonald, Elizabeth MacPhee, Nina McLean, Susan Powell, Diana A. Robledo-Ruiz, Chloe F. Sato, Mel Schroder, Ewen Silvester, Arn Tolsma, Andrew W. Western, Jennie Whinam, Matthew White, Anita Wild, Richard J. Williams, Genevieve Wright, and Wade Young contributed to the formulation of research priorities. Jessica A. Rowland, Joslin L. Moore, Jessica C. Walsh, Kathryn Eyles, Rebecca M. B. Harris, Marie Keatley, David A. Keith, Nina McLean, Chloe F. Sato, Mel Schroder, Ewen Silvester, Arn Tolsma, Andrew W. Western, Jennie Whinam, and Matthew White contributed to writing the study. Sadly, since the workshops in 2020, Rebecca M. B. Harris and Geoffrey Hope have passed away. Upon consultation with their colleagues, we thought it appropriate for their contributions to be acknowledged, and thus remain as coauthors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe authors thank all participants for their time and valuable contributions. This project was funded by the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub, Parks Victoria, and Monash University.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENTThe declare no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENTData sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. However, the full list of questions identified by participants is available in the supplementary materials.
ETHICS STATEMENTThis project was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC) (Project ID: 22881).
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Abstract
Threatened ecosystem conservation requires an understanding of the effectiveness of management and the challenges hindering successful protection and recovery. Bringing together researchers, land managers and policymakers to identify key threats, management needs, and knowledge gaps provides a unified account of the evidence and tools needed to improve threatened ecosystem management. We undertook a research prioritization process for Australian alpine and subalpine peatlands with experts across policy, research, and management. Through individual interviews, structured group discussions, and voting, we generated 25 priority research questions that, if addressed, would enhance our capacity to conserve peatlands. Knowledge gaps spanned four topics: understanding peatland dynamics, impacts of threats, methods to manage these, and the effectiveness of management. Consistent monitoring standards, an open-access knowledge platform and commitment to long-term joint research and management were identified as vital. This collaboration enabled development of a shared agenda of research priorities to target knowledge gaps for informing policy and management of threatened alpine peatlands. Our findings substantiate the importance of stronger ongoing collaboration among researchers, land managers and policymakers across jurisdictions to support conservation.
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1 School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
2 Conservation Research, Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate, Canberra, Australia
3 Eastern Victoria Office, Bright, Victoria, Australia
4 Biodiversity Planning and Policy, ACT Government, Dickson, Australia
5 Department of Climate Change, Energy, and the Environment, Canberra, Australia
6 Australian Alps National Parks Co-operative Management Program, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia
7 Applied Chemistry and Environmental Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
8 International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG), Greifswald, Germany
9 School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
10 West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority, Traralgon, Victoria, Australia
11 College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
12 Melbourne Office, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
13 Centre for Ecosystem Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia
14 Department of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia
15 Independent scholar (retired), Canberra, Australia
16 Alpine Flora - High Altitude Rehabilitation Consultant, Tumut, New South Wales, Australia
17 ACT Government, Canberra, Australia; Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia
18 Southern Ranges Branch, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Jindabyne, New South Wales, Australia
19 Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology (RCAAE), Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution (DEEE), La Trobe University, Wodonga, Australia
20 Arthur Rylah Institute, Biodiversity Division, Environment and Climate Change, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia
21 Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
22 School of Geography, Planning & Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia
23 Biodiversity Conservation Division, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Canberra, Australia
24 Wild Ecology Pty Ltd., Mount Nelson, Tasmania, Australia
25 Charles Darwin University Faculty of Engineering Health Science and the Environment, Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Darwin, Northwest Territories, Australia
26 NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia
27 Parks and Conservation Service, Environment and Planning Directorate, Canberra, Australia
28 School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia; Arthur Rylah Institute, Biodiversity Division, Environment and Climate Change, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia