Coast Ballart

Strategic Management Prospects v4.0 Species Forecast Report created on 01 February, 2024

A Species Forecast Report is a summary of currently available information, the predicted 50-year outlook for the species, and potential pathways to recovery through species-specific and landscape-scale actions.

The report collates data from a range of sources including the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas, Strategic Management Prospects (SMP), Specific Needs Assessments, Threatened Species Action Statements, the Genetic Risk Index, and the IUCN Common Assessment Method.

Species Forecast Reports are intended to be used in conjunction with SMP and other spatial outputs in NatureKit, and Action Statements where relevant.

For more information on Species Forecast Reports, SMP and other biodiversity decision support tools, including user guides, visit Choosing actions for nature webpage on the DEECA website.

Species Overview

Taxon ID	501354
Scientific name	Exocarpos syrticola
Common name	Coast Ballart
Group	Dicotyledons
FFG status	Endangered
EPBC status

Coast Ballart (Image Source: Atlas of Living Australia)

Species description

Description and life history

The taxon is a shrub to c. 3.5 m high, much-branched, dark to bronze-green; branchlets erect, terete or slightly angular, rigid, striate, often swollen at tips, pubescent between ridges at first, finally glabrous. Leaves alternate, scale-like, ovate to lanceolate, 1-1.5 mm long, erect or spreading, persistent, usually becoming dark. Inflorescences usually 2-9-flowered short, dense, sessile spikes or clusters 2-5 mm long in upper leaf axils; rachis pubescent. Tepals 5, triangular, c. 0.5 mm long, obtuse, yellow-green, persistent. Fruiting receptacle subglobose, 4-8 mm long, white to pink; drupe ellipsoid, 3-4 mm long, smooth or slightly ribbed, glabrous, purplish when ripe. The taxon flowers mostly from September to December (VicFlora, 2019). As with other Exocarpos spp., it is suspected that many suckers are browsed off before they can grow beyond accessibility by rabbits. Reproduction from seed is rare and may best happen in either recent blowouts or in mature vegetation in which adventive shrubs have become relatively rare.

Distribution

The taxon is confined to coastal dunes and cliffs on and west of Wilsons Promontory, where it is but locally common. It alsio occurs in South Australia and Tasmania (VicFlora, 2019).

Habitat

Coast Ballart is strictly coastal in occurrence and most common on more calcareous dune systems. It occurs on barely consolidated to well-consolidated coastal dunes, which were relatively recently mobile sands. It is rare in treed areas and its presence within dense coastal scrub may be a reflection of its longevity in sites invaded by adventive shrubs, notably Leptospermum laevigatum and Acacia longifolia var. sophorae.

Genetic Risk Index

No genetic risk information is currently available.

Species maps

Habitat Distribution Model

The Habitat Distribution Model (HDM) layer shows the modelled distribution of habitat for Coast Ballart in Victoria. Red shading indicates areas of habitat with relatively higher suitability, compared with yellow shaded areas. HDMs are developed by combining Victorian Biodiversity Atlas (VBA) occurrence records for the species with a range of environmental variables to predict where the most suitable habitat for the species is in Victoria. Species may not always occupy areas of suitable habitat. Threatening processes (prior or ongoing) and disturbance regimes (e.g. fire, timber harvesting) may stop species from occupying otherwise suitable habitat for periods of time. Management actions often focus on currently occupied areas, however management of unoccupied areas can also be important to allow populations to re-establish.

No Habitat Distrabution Model is currently available.

Species Forecast

Based on modelling data, Coast Ballart has an likelihood of being present of 84% in 50 years time with the management actions currently implemented on the ground. See the Potential actions for recovery table below for more details on these actions.

About Species Forecast

A Species Forecast is the estimated likelihood of a species being present in 50 years time. The data for Species Forecasts is drawn from DEECA’s decision support tools, Strategic Management Prospects and Specific Needs Assessments.

Many species benefit from the management of widespread threats, such as weeds and pests, and the benefit of these landscape-scale actions to ~4,200 species is modelled in Strategic Management Prospects. In addition to landscape-scale actions, some species also need actions that improve or protect habitat at certain sites, such as nest boxes or hollow logs, or actions to improve certain populations, such as gene mixing or translocation.

As part of a continuous improvement program for our decision-support tools, we are working to expand the scope of actions modelled in Strategic Management Prospects, and to build the dataset of species benefits from location-specific and population-specific actions.

We can use this data to consider how different actions may benefit a species and examine how different types of on-ground management may contribute to a species’ recovery in 50 years, to develop a Species Forecast.

Potential actions for species recovery

Species Forecast data has been integrated to determine which specific actions are contributing, or have the potential to contribute, to species persistence. Note: Only management activities that would contribute at least 1% Change in Suitable Habitat have been included in this table

Action Stream	Action	Predicted CSH (ha) from most cost-effective actions	Predicted Forecast from most cost-effective actions	Predicted CSH (ha) from implemented actions	Predicted Forecast from implemented actions
Landscape	AllWeeds	5103	87.52	842	84
Landscape	Control Cats	354	83.57	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Cats & Control Foxes & Control Goats	306	83.53	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Cats & Control Foxes & Control Pigs	558	83.75	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Cats & Control Foxes & Control Rabbits	1548	84.62	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Deer	4054	86.69	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Non-woody Weeds	3028	85.86	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Goats	397	83.61	NA	NA
Landscape	Grazing	507	83.70	NA	NA
Landscape	Grazing & Weeds	1423	84.51	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Eastern Grey Kangaroo	478	83.68	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Pigs	708	83.88	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Rabbits	2982	85.82	NA	NA
Landscape	Control Woody Weeds	1606	84.67	NA	NA

This table includes information on potential actions for species recovery that have been split into three different action groupings, or streams:

Landscape actions are actions that are undertaken ‘in the wild’ to benefit multiple species. These actions are often undertaken over large areas. Examples include control of pests, weed control, fire management and revegetation.Use SMP in NatureKit to explore locations where landscape actions will be most beneficial. SMP can help you plan the right actions in the right locations to benefit this species, and other species which can also benefit from the same actions in those locations.
Location actions are actions that are also undertaken ‘in the wild’ but are targeted at particular sites to improve the habitat for selected species. Examples include creation of artificial hollows and supplementary planting of food source plants.
Population actions are actions that are targeted toward the population(s) of a particular species to increase their numbers. These actions may be undertaken ‘in the wild’ but are often undertaken in captivity or in a laboratory. Examples include gene mixing, captive breeding and translocation.

Please note, the information in this table may not represent the full suite of actions relevant for a species. Some types of actions (e.g. research, monitoring and community engagement) are not currently considered in the Species Forecast database and are therefore not included in the table. Where relevant, these reports will be periodically updated with additional beneficial actions data as more data is collated.

Species prospects in SMP

The benefit data in SMP can be used to consider what the Coast Ballart’s prospects are if the landscape scale management actions in SMP are implemented.

If this species has poor prospects (i.e. if the species curve above is towards the bottom of the prospects plot), the species may benefit from actions outside the common landscape-scale actions currently included in SMP. Deciding which actions may most benefit this species and where best to undertake them, may require a Specific Needs Assessment.

This plot shows the proportion of Coast Ballart’s 1750 habitat estimated to be remaining after 50 years (y-axis) under different levels of action (bold black line), compared with other species in the same taxonomic group (grey lines) and the median of that taxon group (dashed line), according to the SMP ranking.

The x-axis shows the level of action required to achieve the corresponding proportion of 1750 habitat in 50 years, and assumes actions are undertaken according to the SMP Integrated Cost-effectiveness ranking. For example, 90 on the x-axis corresponds to the Top 10% of actions in the SMP outputs.

The median proportion of 1750 habitat in 50 years for all Plants in SMP is also shown for comparison. Importantly, this figure is based only on data in SMP, so there may be actions not currently considered by SMP that would contribute further to conserving Coast Ballart.

Species that have very flat lines do not benefit much from actions in SMP, compared with species with lines that have steep gradients. Species with curves close to the bottom of the figure have relatively little of their 1750 habitat remaining, compared to species with curves higher up on the figure. Species with flat lines and/or lines close to the bottom of the figure are strong candidates for considering actions not currently in SMP and therefore should be evaluated using Specific Needs.

How to get further information and provide feedback

For more information on the decision support tools, products and underlying data used in this report, and how the data is collected and developed into products, please visit the following links:

These links include information on how to provide data and feedback into these products.

The Species Forecast Reports will be updated periodically to reflect changes and improvements in the products and tools that inform them (e.g., following updates to SMP).

As the data contained in Species Forecast Reports is drawn from multi-species datasets, it is not currently possible to incorporate species-specific information or feedback directly.

For help or further information get in touch by visiting Choosing actions for nature webpage on the DEECA website.

### References * DEPI (2014). Advisory list of rare or threatened plants in Victoria - 2014. Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Melbourne. * Harris S., Buchanan A. and Connolly A. (2001). One Hundred Islands - The Flora of the Outer Furneaux. Government of Tasmania. * VicFlora (2019). Flora of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria: Exocarpos syrticola. Retrieved from: https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/cec99447-63a4-4375-a56c-479a1beb8f9e