Miss Emanuela Cosma1, Miss Sue Baker1, Mr Leon Barmuta1, Mrs Darla Hatton MacDonald2

1School of Natural Sciences, Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, 2Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

Biography:

Emanuela Cosma is currently pursuing a PhD at University of Tasmania studying the impacts of forestry practices on beetle communities in Southern Tasmanian wet forests. Originally from Italy, she has a multidisciplinary background in Viticulture and Oenology, along with Global Change Ecology. Following her master’s degree, she gained valuable experience as a trainee at the University of the Azores, where she contributed to a project monitoring arthropod communities in the Azorean Forests. Throughout her academic journey, Emanuela has prioritized practical implications. Her research aims to contribute to sustainable landscape management strategies that enhance invertebrate biodiversity conservation in production forest landscapes.

Abstract:

Disturbance by forestry practices and wildfires significantly alters habitat conditions, leading to shifts in beetle communities. With increasing global demand for wood products, balancing timber production with biodiversity conservation becomes imperative. Two strategies, land sharing and land sparing, have emerged to address these two conflicting goals. Both represent two equally sized landscape scenarios which produce the same amount of timber: land sharing involves ecological forestry practices with smaller reserve areas due to lower timber yields, while land sparing involves intensive management, which is more impactful locally but allocates more space for conservation.

Currently, it is unclear which approach is most effective. My PhD aims to elucidate this issue by investigating how different forestry intensities and wildfire impact beetle species abundances and community composition across time and scales—from individual sites to landscapes.

To achieve this goal, I collected beetles with pitfall traps from 66 sites in Tasmanian wet forests, encompassing different native and plantation forestry systems, and unmanaged forests including oldgrowth and recent wildfire regrowth.

I will analyse how beetle species abundances, composition and functional traits change with intensity of production, succession, wildfire, and environmental variability. By integrating species density data with timber yield and economic metrics, this research seeks to identify the optimal mix of forestry systems and reserves to reconcile conservation with production at landscape scale.

Ultimately, this study aims to provide practical insights for forestry managers to conserve beetles locally and provide a theoretical framework for sustainable landscape-scale management that minimizes biodiversity loss while meeting timber demands.