Transcript Far North Queensland, Australia, May/June 2006

Far North Queensland and the Wet
Tropics
5 May – 4 June 2006
Introduction
Far North Queensland and the Wet Tropics
contain unique and diverse ecosystems of
interest for our PBI research because:
• Mirids have not been targeted in collecting here
before
• The rainforest especially is of interest in
southern hemisphere biogeography with links to
New Guinea and New Caledonia
Where we went
We covered approximately 1500km from Townsville to Cooktown along
both the coast and inland ranges.
Fieldtrip Participants
Gerry Cassis
Hannah
Lauren Barrow
Hannah Finlay
Celia Symonds
Lauren
Celia and Gerry labelling the catch of the day
Former Australian Museum Research Scientist
Greg Edgecombe accompanied the group for 1
week to collect centipedes with Lauren’s
assistance.
We collected in both wet and dry habitats with very different results
Mosman Gorge,
Wet Tropics World Heritage Area
Open grassy woodlands of the Chillagoe
area, west of the Atherton Tablelands
Dry Country Host Plants
Common dry country host plants included figs, wattles, grevilleas, Callitris, Allocasuarina
and peas. Overall diversity and abundance of Mirids was greater in the dry country.
Grevillea pteridifolia
Allocasuarina torulosa
Erythroxylum australe
Jacksonia scoparia
Callitris (Cupressaceae) in the Savannah Woodlands
Callitris intratropica is the dominant Callitris species across
northern Australia but it is believed to be a complex of species.
We wanted to collect more extensively on Callitris on this trip to see if there may also be a
complex of related Orthotylines associated with different Callitris species. A very complex
question, but we have found a number of different sister species which are almost
indistinguishable externally but only found on different host Callitris species.
Hidden Valley, west of Paluma is one of the places in the far north where a new species of
Callitris has been found and we found a new green Orthotyline Mirid species on this
Callitris and only known from this site.
The rangelands west of Charters Towers
Acacia excelsa is one of many varied forms of Acacia found in these dry open woodlands.
This species was found to host a number of Mirid species including 2 Orthotylines and
1 Phyline
Forty Mile Scrub National Park, west of Mt Garnet
40 Mile Scrub National Park is a dry rainforest remnant on volcanic soils surrounded by
grassy woodlands on the McBride Plateau at 900m altitude.
It is one of the few inland dry rainforest remnants in north Queensland and of national
conservation significance.
Scutelerid
Lampromicra sp.
Berytids
Plataspids
This Ficus sp. in the 40 Mile Scrub was found to be host to a variety of
Heteropteran (and other insect!) species including mirids such as Zanchius
species.
Wet Tropics Rainforest Host Plants
We found low to moderate diversity in the rainforest habitats most likely as we were
unable to access the canopy which holds the majority of the diversity in such a habitat.
Litsea leefeana
Mallotus
surculosus
Clerodendrum inerme
Alstonia
muellerina
Archer Point nr Cooktown
This exposed coastal bay was a windswept and somewhat disturbed habitat,
with mangroves around the shoreline. The grassland and herbs as well as Casuarina trees
yielded some interesting Mirids including a new Pseudoloxops sp. and yellow Phyline sp.
Some other wildlife we spotted along the way…
In Summary
On this trip we sampled 65 localities
and collected from 182 host plants.
We found a high diversity of
Heteroptera and a moderate diversity
of Mirids.
The Mirids we collected comprised of
a large number of species in the
Zanchius group and Orthotylini.
We found very few Austromirini and
not too many Phylines.