LINNEAN SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
LINN
152
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NEWSLETTER EDITOR:
Dr Helene A. Martin
School of BEES
University of New South Wales
SYDNEY NSW 2052 h .martin@unsw .
edu.au
SOCIETY OFFICE:
Suite 3 , 40 Gardeners Road
KINGSFORD NSW 2032
POSTAL ADDRESS:
PO Box82
KINGSFORD NSW 2032
E-MAIL: linnsoc@iinet.net.au
WEB SITE: http://linneansocietynsw.org.au
Telephone:
(02) 9662 6196
Mobile Service
0408693 974
IN THIS ISSUE
Council of the Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jenolan Caves papers ...
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Marine microbiology, a talk given by A / Prof Justin Seymour...
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Rapid evolution in introduced species, a lecture by A/Prof Angela Moles
The Murray Basin - once an inland sea, by Helene Martin.
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Progtamme
Dr. Judith Field: Plant use in the Highlands of New Guinea ... . ..
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Dr . Rebecca Spindler: Conservation at Taronga .....
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A/Prof Martin Van Kranendonk; Early life on Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
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THE COUNCIL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
At the last Annual General Meeting, Prof Robert King was elected President. Five Council members retired and were re elected unopposed. The present Council Members are listed below , together with their interests .
Dr Mike Augee: Mamalogy and paleontology .
Dr John Barkas: Geology
Ms Michele Cotton: Veterinary science, Wildlife health and management, Veterinary Public
Health, Biosecurity and International Animal Disease
Ms Emma Gorrod: Plant ecology, Restoration ecology , Decision making for conservation,
Adaptive management
Dr Mike Gray: Spider studies , Photography , Reading , Kayaking
Mr J-C Herreman: Arachnology , Bibliography of Arachnida, Volunteering
Prof David Keith: Plant ecology , Royal National Park
Prof Robert King: Botany , especially phycology, Science policy and education , Natural history generally
Dr Helene Martin: Palynology and its applications , Biogeography, Ecology, Climatic change
Dr David Murray: Australian flora , the Iris Society of Australia , Environmental education , Plant breeding, the Preserv ation of heirloom vegetables, the Effects of elevated atmospheric carbon di oxide on the quality of food crops

Dr Peter Myerscough: Plant Ecology
Dr Ian Percival: Palaeontology (especially Palaeozoic invertebrates), Geology, Geological heritage.
Dr John Pickett: Stratigraphy, Biostratigraphy, Invertebrate palaeontology, Regional geology ,
Geomorphology, Biogeography
Ms Helen Smith: Arachnology, especially systematics of Hadrotarsinae (Theridiidae and
Stiphidiidae); Ethology and systematics of Araneidae
Mr Bruce Welch: Speleology
Ms Karen Wilson: Botanical systematics , PhyJogenetics and biogeography, especially of the families Casuarinaceae (she oaks), Cyperaceae (sedges),Juncaceae (rushes) and
Polygonaceae (docks and smartweeds) ; Digital dissemination of biodiversity related information; Botanical history and nomenclature
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Papers arising from a symposium held by the Linnean Society of NSW at Jenolan Caves 22 23 May 2013 have now been published on line and may be viewed at http://ojsprod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/LIN/index The papers are as follows:
Minerals of JenoJan Caves, New South Wales, Australia: Geological and Biological lnteractions _,_ R . E.
Pogson , RAL. Osborn e, D. M. Colchester
The Jenolan Environmental Monitoring Program , _ Andrew C. Baker
Invertebrate Cave Fauna of Jenolan ,_Stefan M. Eberhard, Graeme B. Smith , Michael M. Gibian, Helen M.
Smith, Michael R. Gray
Jenolan Show Caves: Origin of Cave and Feature Names._Kath Bellam y , Craig Barnes
Understanding the Origin and Evolution of Jenolan Caves: The Next Steps._R. Armstrong L. Osborne
Geology and Geomorphology of Jenolan Caves and the Surrounding Region. _ David F Branagan, John
Pickett, Ian G. Percival
a lecture given by A/Prof Justin Seymour.
A teaspoon of seawater contains 10 million bacteria and 100 million viruses. There are more microbes in a teaspoon of seawater than stars in the sky. A picture of the microbes in seawater , stained to make them visible under the microscope does indeed look like the starry s ky with tiny viruses, larger bacteria and much larger phytoplankton . The photosynthetic microbes form the base of the food web but only 50% of the carbon fixed by these microbes goes up the food chain: the other 50% becomes dissolved in the sea water where it is utilised by other microbes.
The photosynthetic microbes are eaten by the plankton that is then eaten by larger invertebrates and fish, all the way up to the largest fish of all, sharks. On the way up the food chain, the non-photosynthetic organisms produce waste products that are then re-used by the non-photosynthetic microbes that are then eaten by the plankton .... Microbes control the carbon, nitrogen and sulphur cycles in the ocean. The ecology and interactions of these organisms are very important and fundamental to properly understanding ocean function.
The microbes are identified using molecular techniques. In a north-south transect of the Atlantic, from southernmost South America to England , the different strains of microbes showed different patterns of distribution: some tropical and some temperate. The Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcu s, are abundant in the tropics, and Synechococcus is more abundant in temperate regions. These two microbes are responsible for most of the productivity and oxygen production of the oceans. Climate change will affect the productivity and distribution of these microbes.
The East Australian Current that brought Nemo's dad to Sydney does indeed bring tropical fish south at least to Sydney and it also brings the tropical microbes south. Along a transect across the current, tropical microbes are found in the centre of the current and temperate ones along the edges. The
East Australian Current is becoming s tronger and now extends some 3 400 km further south than it used to go. The Tasman Sea has temperate microbes

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It was thought that a drop of seawater would be homogenous, but it is now known that this is not so . A significant fraction of the carbon fixed during photosynthesis exudes into the water as dissolved organic carbon (DOC). There is thus a zone of elevated DOC surrounding individual phytoplankton cells that can be utilised by other microbes. If the microbe is motile or sinks in the water column , then the spherical zone of DOC is distorted into a comet-like plume. Zooplankton excretes a plume rich in inorganic nutrients such as ammonia and phosphate. Some copepods also release an amino acid rich trail of pheromones during mating. Viral infected cells break down, releasing a short-lived pulse of dissolved organic matter. All of this contributes to a rich chemical tapestry that is food for other microbes.
The bacteria must cope with this patchy distribution of resources . Some are motile and have flagella tha t they use to swim . Microbes can sense a chemical gradient and then direct their movements according to the gradient. Studying these processes within a drop of water requires some very special techniques called microfluidics. A chamber on a microscope slide has a point of entry at the end of the slide for the drop of water. Half way along is another entry point for injecting a nutrient. When a nutrient is introduced , the bacteria can be tracked concentrating in the area of the nutrient, just like a feeding frenzy of sharks on a school of fish. Other bacteria are non motile and then, when a patch of nutrient is introduced, they wait for the nutrient to diffuse out to them . Resources are used up faster by the motile than the non-motile bacteria.
Microbes drive other nutrient cycles. Nitrogen fixing microbes fix nitrogen from the air and make it available to other organisms, but onJy under aerobic conditions. If the environment is anaerobic, such as in sediments, then denitrifying microbes reduce the fixed nitrogen to free nitrogen that is then lost to the biosphere. The phototropic bacteria release a sulphur containing compound DMSP that is broken down to DMS that forms sulphate aerosols when released to the atmosphere and can seed clouds. There are sulphur oxidising bacteria in aerobic environments and sulphate reducing bacteria in anaerobic conditions. Microbes drive all of the complex chemical cycles in the ocean.
Prof Seymour opened up a whole new world to us. This mini-microscopic world within one drop of water could only be studied by special techniques that were in themselves just as amazing.
Throughout, the microbial inhabitants of this world were following the general ecological principles observed in the larger world, for example, of fish and sharks.
A question was put to Prof Seymour: What is the value of iron seeding in the ocean? It has been found that limited iron resources limit fixation of carbon and it is thought that by adding the nutrient iron , carbon fixation could be increased that would help to lower the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Seymour replied that experiments have shown that increased iron does increase carbon fixation, but it also increases the productivity of the non-photosynthesising organisms that produce carbon dioxide through respiration so that the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by adding iron fertilizer to seawater is negligible .
A lecture given by A/Prof Angela Moles
One hundred years ago , Aclimatisation Societies were active introducing species to " enrich" our native flora and fauna. We know of some spectacular results, like the introduction of the rabbit. In New
York, someone decided to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works into Central Park.
The English Starling was one of them and they are present in plague proportions now . Most introductions , though, are accidental .
In Australia, there are over 3,000 introduced species and they upset people for two reasons: the weeds cost us money and they are a threat to biodiversity. The average eco l ogical approach is to exterminate all introduced species to return the environment to its former pristine state.
Aclimatisation is almost the perfect recipe for evolution to make a new species. The most common way species evolve is for some individuals to be isolated in a new environment and they then adapt to the new conditions. Darwin ' s finches are the best-known example. If isolated long enough, they will not interbreed with the original population. Introduced species are under strong selective pressure.
Herbariwn specimens preserve changes over time, and there are specimens over 100 years old in
Australia . Sexually reproducing, annuals or short-live species that were accidentally introduced were chosen. Numerous measurements were taken, and of 1900 species, 70% showed a significant difference

4 in at least one trait over 100 years. If changes are correlated with environment, there is even more significant change.
To test the changes against some controls, introduced species of a genus with a similar native species were chosen . Then the introduce species was compared with 2 controls : 1) a similar native species and 2) the introduced species in its original home. The introduced species showed more change.
It was known that species could change, but not how much change.
Using the same methods in New Zealand, only 28% of the species showed change, much less than i n Australia. This could be because the environment in New Zealand was more like the environment of the original home of the introduced species, hence there was Jess pressure to change.
Clonal species reproduce asexually (cuttings, bulbs etc.): could introduced clonal specie s adapt to new environments? Experiments showed that there were no significant difference in the number of changes or the rate of change when compared with sexually reproducing species. Mutations can occur anywhere , and if a mutation occurs in one branch of a plant, it may be broken off and the mutant clone established. With animals, the mutation must occur in the reproductive cells if it is to be passed on to the next generation. Somatic mutations that occur elsewhere in the body are three times as common a s mutations in the germ cells.
The herbaria in England have a 200 year record and introduced species show significant change also. There is a lag phase in population size of introduced species, and is there a lag in the rate of change also? Experiments show that there is no lag phase and change is still going on after 200 years , although not necessarily in the same direction.
The introduced South African species, the beach daisy has a small home range , hence less diversity in the population than a species with a large home range. If there is a large diversity in a species , it may be argued that the change observed may only be selection for some of the variation. An experiment compared the introduced Australian beach daisies with South African ones when grown on to the second generation in the glasshouse. The juvenile leaves were similar in both, but the adult leaves were very different. The Australian adult leaves were green and a simple shape, like the juvenile leaves whereas the
South African adult leaves were bluish and had a lobed shape. There were physiological changes also : the Australian beach daisies had a lower photosynthetic rate and a higher water use. The next experiment will test if the Australian and South African forms still interbreed, but there is a problem: they flower at different times.
The good news is that if plants are so adaptable to a new environment then they should be able to cope with climate change. The bad news i s that we may be stuck with the introduce species. Has any eradication program actually been successful? Should we be trying to eradicate any and all introduced species or put scarce resources to better use .
In New Zealand, $NZ117 .5 million was spent on possum control in 2000. The plants were better off for some years, but the possums are back again, just as bad. The total budget for the Department of
Conservation in 2012 was $NZ330mi11ion . Could the expenditure have been better used on something else?
Weeds are a headache, not a brain tumor. The vast majority of weeds flourish in a disturbed environment. In bushland, under a normal fire regime and without any nutrient enrichment from roadsides and runoff, there are few weeds. Around housing next to bushland where there is increased burning off for fire protection and runofffrom household gardens and compost heaps , weeds flourish.
Introduced species should be judged on what they do. Some do not need control: no one suggests that we should eradicate clover. On the other hand, lantana is very invasive and does need control. The dingo has been in Australia for 2,500 years, some 130 generations. There are mixed opinions: some do not consider the dingo a native species. In some environments, the dingo keeps down feral cats and foxes and allows small native animals to flourish. On the other hand, dingoes in sheep country are a big problem.
MURRAY
by Helene Martin
When Captain Charles Sturt went exploring down the Darling River, he was convinced he would find an inland sea, but he was disappointed. Numerous modem s tudies , however , reveal that the Darling did once flow into an inland sea, only Captain Sturt was about 1 5 million years too late.
Groundwater from the river valleys and riverine plain to the west is a very important resource for agriculture. For best management and exploitation of the aquifers , an understanding of the stratigraphy of

5 the alluvial fill of these valleys is necessary. The sands, gravels , silts and clays of the sediments may all look much the same wherever they occur in the sedimentary sequence , but the pollen content changes with time and can be diagnostic of the position in the sequence. Thus the palynology provides the necessary stratigraphic information about the aquifers, and when combined with other studies, reveal s the history of the region.
The palynology of the alluvium in the river valleys of the Western Slopes, from the Murray to the
Lachlan , Macquarie and Namoi Rivers , shows two distinctive layers. The basal layer has sands and gravels that are almost entirely quartz and yields good quality groundwater, in contrast to the upper layer that has different rock types with very little quartz , and the groundwater quality is not so good. The palynology shows that the basal layer i s late Miocene and Pliocene in age (about 10-2.6 million years old) with the upper layer Pleistocene (2.6 million years to present) in age. But why s hould the alluvial fill in all the valleys be so similar?
The Murray Basin formed in a broad depression between the Mount Lofty Ranges and the western end of the Eastern Highlands over 60 million years ago and older geological texts call it the Murravian
Gulf. The rivers of the Murray Darling System flowed into this inland sea (Fig. l) from at least Eocene time (-40 mWion years ago). The extent of flooding of this relatively shallow sea varied with the fluctuations in global sea levels (Fig. 2) . The mid Miocene(~ 15 million years ago) was a time of maximum flooding and at this time, the ancestral Darling River would have discharged into the sea in the
Menindee region.
Global sea levels fell dramatically after mid Miocene time (Fig. 2) when the ice cap on Antarctica was building up. By about 10 million years ago , the Murray Basin was drained completely and then followed a period when it was dry and soils formed. At this time , the Murray Darling River System went due south and discharged into the sea in western Victoria. Sea levels rose again about 6 million years ago, but did not reach the extent of the mid Miocene levels and fell again soon after.
These changes in sea levels impacted on the river valleys of the Murray Darling River System and the build up of alluvial sediment . When the sea level fell, the base level of the rivers was lowered and erosion increased, removing the older sediments already in the valley. When the sea level rose again , sediments were again deposited in the valleys. It is thought that the major drop in sea levels between 15 and 10 million years ago eroded out all the older sediments and deposition of alluvium re-commenced when the sea level rose again after 10 million years.
Some critics claim that tectonics are the cause of the observed patterns of depo s ition of the alluvium, but all the evidence indicates tectonic events were minor and even different for adjacent river valleys. There is general agreement that tectonics only served to maintain the elevation of the highlands.
Some critics claim that a changing climate was responsible for the observed patterns of deposition in the river valleys. The palynology shows that most of the,landscape was forested and the climate was much wetter than today. About 2.6 million years ago, at the beginning of the Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycles, the vegetation changed from forests to open savannah woodlands and grasslands, more like the vegetation of the region today, indicating a decrease in rainfall. This climatic change coincided with the change in type of alluvium, from the quartz-rich sediment to the variable rocktype sediments. Under the higher rainfall regimen, there would have been more chemical weathering of the rock types, leaving only the most resistant quartz. The different pattern of weathering that accompanied this climatic change probably accounts for the different type of alluvium. Both sea level and climatic events would have affected all of the river valleys in similar ways, at the same time.
Minor tectonics cut off the mouth of the Murray Basin from the sea and prevented the river system draining into the sea. A fresh-water mega-lake, Lake Bungunnia was formed about 2.4 million years ago
(Fig. 3). At its maximum extent, the Darling River would have discharged into the lake in the
Pooncarie/Mildura region . Lake levels fluctuated with the climatic fluctuations of the Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycles. About 700,000 years ago, the modem course of the Murray River into South
Australia was forged, probably the result of minor tectonics (McLaren et al, 2011) .
Today, the groundwater is in danger of being over-exploited. It is tempting to think of groundwater as a backup in times of drought , but this is not the case. River water recharges the groundwater so that in times of good rainfall, the groundwater levels are high, and in times of drought, the levels fall and could be depleted without recharge. Interconnection of the aquifers is being studied to provide a better understanding of how much water is likely to be available for exploitation, especially in times of drought.
The use of groundwater is highly regulated and a water license is a valuable commodity.

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References
Martin, HA. (2014). A review of the Cenozoic palynostratigraphy of the river valleys of central and western New South Wales. Proceedings of the Linnaen Society of New South Wales 136 xx-yy http : //ojs-prod.library.us yd .edu .au/index .
php/LIN/index
McLaren, S., Wallace, M.D
.
, Gallagher, SJ., Miranda , JA., Holdgate, G.R., et al. (2011).
Palaeogeographic, climatic and tectonic change in southeastem Australia: late Neogene evolution of the Murray Basin. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 1086 1111
---....-Palaeorlver
A Ancestral rive r j: : : : :
1 i o-lacustrine
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: 1 : 1 Mar g inal M a r ine
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Fi g. 1. Maxim um flooding of the Murray Basin, about 15 million years ago.
EPOCH
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200
GLOBAL SEA LEVEL
100 MSL (m)
AGE
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Fig : 2. Globafchanges .
in sea level ·
Ma ::;:; million years
Fig. 3. Lake Bungunnia about 2.4 Ma with the : modem Murray Rive r (only 700,000 · years old) sup erim posed

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there is now a locked gate between the carpark and the Classroom.
Jf it is locked when you come to a lecture , just wait and someone will come and let you in.
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Dr. Field and colJeagues study plant microfossils, such as starch and phytoliths , found in cultural sediments and as use-related residues on stone tools. They are looking at the role of plants in the settlement of the PNG highlands and how these may have changed through time. The Ivane Valley study presented in this talk provides an interesting contrast to the research further west at Kuk swamp, where agriculture has been identified from the early Holocene. The Ivane Valley has yielded the earliest evidence from Sahul
(Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea) for human settlement and continues to produce exciting new information about the dynamic behaviours of humans in marginal land scapes.
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TarongaZoo
AT
Taronga Conservation Society Australia has a strong mandate for Science a nd
Conservation. Our scientists are conservation focused and answer questions about habitat use, species function and impacts of human activities. Our conservation action is grounded in existing knowledge but we also continue to learn from each project at key points along the road. Our conservation work extends beyond our boundaries into many countries around the world and is focused on species, habitats and local communities.
This talk will describe key science and conservation projects in NSW, wider Australia, the
Antarctic, Asia, Africa and South America.
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Wednesday 22 October, at 6 pm, in the Classroom, Royal Botanic Gardens.
Enter through the gate to the Herbarium Carpark, on Mrs. Macquaries Rd.
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School of Biological, Earth and environmental Sciences, University of New South
Wales
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Drinks will be served from 5.30 pm
EVERYONE WELCOMED