24-482: The Mulga Lands are an interim Australian bioregion of eastern Australia consisting of dry sandy plains with low mulga woodlands and shrublands that are dominated by Acacia aneura (mulga). The Eastern Australia mulga shrublands ecoregion is coterminous with the Mulga Lands bioregion. Located in inland New South Wales and Queensland , these are flat plains with some low hills and infertile sandy soil with
48-670: A cover of grasses and shrubs with mulga and eucalyptus trees. The region contains areas of wetland, most of them only seasonally flooded, these include Lake Wyara and Lake Numalla , the Currawinya Lakes , Lake Bindegolly and others on the Warrego and the Paroo Rivers , the latter of which in particular remains relatively unmanaged and in its natural state. The area has a very dry climate, with unpredictable low rainfall (450–650 mm per year). The plains are drained in three directions:
72-457: A danger of overgrazing while mulga leaves are used as livestock fodder and other trees are removed to create more grassland and to allow access to water sources. The mound springs are particularly affected by this. There are some areas of National Park, the largest of which is Currawinya, whose wetlands are especially important as bird habitats. Others include Hell Hole Gorge , Lake Bindegolly, Mariala , Thrushton , part of Welford , Idalia and
96-572: Is a particularly rich variety of habitats in areas such as Isla Gorge and Blackdown Tableland in the sandstone belt of the Carnarvon Range. The Northern Brigalow Belt is one of fifteen national biodiversity hotspots in Australia. The region is home to the unadorned rock-wallaby and the black-striped wallaby , which lives in the areas of vine thicket along with a wingless dung beetle ( Onthophagus apterus ). Two endangered mammals are found in
120-481: Is a wide band of acacia -wooded grassland that runs between tropical rainforest of the coast and the semi-arid interior of Queensland and northern New South Wales , Australia . The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divides the Brigalow Belt into two IBRA regions, or bioregions, Brigalow Belt North (BBN) and Brigalow Belt South (BBS). The North and South Brigalow Belt are two of
144-612: Is divided into 89 bioregions and 419 subregions. Each region is a land area made up of a group of interacting ecosystems that are repeated in similar form across the landscape. IBRA is updated periodically based on new data, mapping improvements, and review of the existing scheme. The most recent version is IBRA7, developed during 2012, which replaced IBRA6.1. This is a list of region and subregions under IBRA7. Region codes are given in parentheses, followed by area, where known. Images of regions are from IBRA6.1, pending creation of maps for IBRA7. Brigalow Belt The Brigalow Belt
168-463: Is drier than the coast, which may have 750 mm or more. The characteristic plant communities are woodlands of highly water stress tolerant brigalow ( Acacia harpophylla ), a slender acacia tree which thrives on the clay soil and once covered much of the area especially the fertile lowlands. Most of the brigalow has been cleared to make agricultural land, but the Queensland Bottle Tree
192-599: Is often left uncleared due to its leaves being fodder for cattle. Eucalypt woodlands of silver-leaved and narrow-leaved ironbarks , poplar box and other boxes, blackbutt and coolibah are also intact primarily on the higher slopes. Dichanthium grasslands are another typical habitat of the area while pockets of thicker woodland of brigalow mixed with Casuarina cristata and ooline occur in moister valleys and vine thickets , wetlands, and softwood scrubs are sometimes found although in their undeveloped state, these specialised micro-habitats are rare today. There
216-500: Is ongoing as there are a number of nature reserves of which do protect the various types of habitat found in the Belt including brigalow and eucalyptus woodland, grassland, vine thicket, high peaks, sandstone gorges and wetlands however these tend to be located on the sandstone uplands rather than the fertile lowlands, where the brigalow woodlands are still vulnerable to clearance and are often limited to small areas of parkland. The grasslands of
240-475: Is part of the project to revive Australia's population of the bilby , which in the park is protected from dingos and cats. This part of Australia is generally dry and when flooded Lakes Wyara and Numalla are important habitats for birds, being home to 250,000 birds of 40 species including the rainbow bee-eater , Australasian shoveller , freckled duck , musk duck , black swan , silver gull , Australian pelican , great egret , and glossy ibis . Together with
264-456: The Brigalow Belt , the Mulga Lands are where most of Queensland's land clearing is occurring. 80% of the original plant cover is intact, especially in the drier inland west, as some areas of eucalyptus woodland have been cleared in the eastern side of the area. There are no endangered habitats in the mulga lands. However, most of the area is used for grazing sheep and cattle, so there is always
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#1732868699194288-530: The Culgoa Floodplain National Parks . Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia ( IBRA ) is a biogeographic regionalisation of Australia developed by the Australian government's Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities . It was developed for use as a planning tool, for example for
312-574: The white-footed rabbit-rat and the Darling Downs hopping mouse . Together with the Mulga Lands , the Brigalow Belt are where most of Queensland's land clearing is occurring. Much of the brigalow woodland has been cleared or radically reduced to the extent that some wildlife, failing to thrive in the altered environment, has become extinct here with a number of the remaining communities threatened or endangered. The clearance of brigalow and poplar box
336-627: The 85 bioregions across Australia and the 15 bioregions in Queensland. Together they form most of the Brigalow tropical savanna ecoregion . The Northern Brigalow Belt covers just over 135,000 square kilometres (52,124 sq mi) and runs from just north of Townsville to Emerald and Rockhampton on the Tropic of Capricorn , while the Southern Brigalow Belt runs from there down to
360-680: The Brigalow Belt; the bridled nail-tail wallaby in Taunton and Idalia National Parks , and the burrowing northern hairy-nosed wombat in the grassland and eucalyptus of Epping Forest National Park . There are also populations of dunnart, wallaby , bat and koala . Birds found here include black-throated finch and russet-tailed thrush , while endemic reptiles include the Fitzroy River turtle . A variety of spiders and insects are found there, including Euoplos dignitas , an armoured trapdoor spider discovered in 2023. Already extinct fauna include
384-483: The Queensland/ New South Wales border and a little beyond, until the habitat becomes the eucalyptus dominated Eastern Australian temperate forests . This large, complex strip of countryside covers an area of undulating to rugged slopes, consisting of ranges as well as plains of ancient sand and clay deposits, basalt and alluvium. The Northern Brigalow Belt includes the coal producing Bowen Basin , with
408-488: The basin. The Mulga Lands are defined by their plant life and poor soil and as such are distinct from neighbouring ecoregions , the Brigalow Belt to the east and the Mitchell Grass Downs to the north, both of which have better soil and richer plant life. The Southeast Australia temperate savanna ecoregion lies to the south and southeast. The drier Simpson Desert and Tirari-Sturt stony desert ecoregions lie to
432-466: The better-watered parts that have more wildlife than the mulga acacia plains themselves. Eucalyptus trees found here include bimble box , coolibah , and silver-leaved ironbark . To the east of the Warrego River in Queensland the mulga lands merge into a heath of sand dunes. Throughout the mulga lands plant life quickly flourishes after rainfall and habitats revive and change. Currawinya National Park
456-823: The eastern side by the Wallam , Nebine and Mungallala Creeks (tributaries of the Culgoa River ), and the Warrego and Paroo rivers into the Murray-Darling basin ; the southwest by the Bulloo River into wetlands near the Simpson Desert ; and finally the northern side by the Barcoo River towards Lake Eyre . The Great Artesian Basin lies below these plains and more rich patches of wildlife are found around mound springs stemming from
480-526: The establishment of a national reserve system . The first version of IBRA was developed in 1993–94 and published in 1995. Within the broadest scale, Australia is a major part of the Australasia biogeographic realm, as developed by the World Wide Fund for Nature . Based on this system, the world is also split into 14 terrestrial habitats , of which eight are shared by Australia. The Australian land mass
504-590: The nearby Drummond Basin and the fertile Peak Downs areas. The southern belt, which begins with the sandstone gorges of the Carnarvon Range of the Great Dividing Range , runs into the huge Great Artesian Basin . The south-west side includes the farming area of Darling Downs . A number of important rivers drain the Brigalow Belt. The large Fitzroy River system and the Belyando and Burdekin rivers near
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#1732868699194528-441: The region are also under threat from introduced pasture grasses such as buffelgrass and weeds such as Congress weed . One particular threat comes from alterations to natural flow patterns caused by the addition of dams and weirs which impact the riverine and floodplain plant and animal species. A little more than two per cent of the Brigalow Belt lies within national parks and other protected areas. The largest national parks in
552-540: The tropics all drain eastwards, while the south-western areas drain westwards into the Murray–Darling basin via the Maranoa , Warrego and Condamine Rivers . In the north, there are tropical summer rains and warm weather all year round, while in the south the winter is slightly cooler and there is more rainfall outside of the summer months. Throughout the belt, the interior, with less than 500 mm of rainfall per year,
576-450: The west. The mulga lands are sparsely populated and mostly used for grazing sheep and cattle. Mulga trees are a type of acacia which have adapted to efficiently collect the sparse rainfall, are the distinctive habitat of this ecoregion while the ground cover consists of shrubs and grasses. However the mulga lands are not uniform and there are micro-climates and patches of other kinds of habitat, especially areas of eucalyptus woodland in
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