The Upland Basalt Eucalypt Forests of the Sydney Basin Bioregion is typically tall open eucalypt forests found on basalt and basalt-like substrates in, or adjacent to, the Sydney Basin Bioregion.
Upland Basalt Eucalypt Forests of the Sydney Basin Bioregion ecological community
Status: Endangered on the EPBC Act list
Government evidence of impact of climate change:
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Approved Conservation Advice for Upland Basalt Eucalypt Forests of the Sydney Basin Bioregion ecological community
The main potential threats to Upland Basalt Eucalypt Forests of the Sydney Basin Bioregion include stone extraction (ongoing at Mt Gibraltar near Bowral NSW); other mining actions; and climate change.
Threats The main identified threats to Upland Basalt Eucalypt Forests of the Sydney Basin Bioregion are clearing and fragmentation impacts from farming and grazing impacts from adjacent residential development inappropriate fire regimes and invasion by weeds and feral animals (TSSC; 2011).
Urbanisation also increases pressure to reduce bushfire fuel loads that may be detrimental to the ecological community.
With increasing distance from the coast (and a corresponding decrease in rainfall); the understorey tends to grade from relatively mesic (significant component of rainforest species); to relatively scleric (more drought and fire tolerant shrubs and a more prominent grass layer) (Benson Howell; 1994 Fisher et al.; 1995).