Long-awn Spear-grass

Strategic Management Prospects v4.0 Species Forecast Report created on 05 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	505386
Scientific name	Austrostipa tenuifolia
Common name	Long-awn Spear-grass
Group	Monocotyledons
FFG status	Endangered
EPBC status

Long-awn Spear-grass (Image Source: Atlas of Living Australia)

Species description

Description and life history

Austrostipa tenuifolia is a tufted perennial, culms erect, to 1 m high, glabrous; nodes often hidden within sheaths. Leaves smooth to scabrous, occasionally with scattered, short, stiff hairs; sheaths often purplish; blade loosely to tightly inrolled, to 25 cm long, to 1.5 mm diam.; ligule ciliate to woolly, 0.8-2.5 mm long. Inflorescence a sparse, slender panicle to 35 cm long, its base sometimes enclosed by uppermost leaf-sheath. Glumes 13-20 mm long, usually purplish initially, acuminate or acute, subequal or the lower up to 5 mm longer than upper; lemma 7-9 mm long, brown at maturity, granular for the most part, shortly tuberculate, with moderately dense short white to pale tan hairs, usually sparser toward the apex; coma sparse (if developed), to c. 1 mm long; callus 2-3 mm long; awn falcate, 70-100 mm long, the straight part 10-15 mm long, shortly pubescent to villous; palea slightly shorter than lemma, with a sparse line of hairs down the centre. Flowers Oct.-Nov.(VicFlora 2017) Likely episodic recruitment in response to wet conditions; Longevity plausible 5-10years; Recruitment likely to be andplusmn; continuous in response to small scale disturbance

Distribution

Austrostipa tenuifolia is known from only 2 collections in the north-central part of the state (Quambatook, Terrick Terrick) where growing in Callitris-dominated woodland. The Victorian collections are significantly disjunct from the nearest occurrences in S.A. near the Victorian border (VicFlora 2017).

Habitat

The taxon is found on dry grassy Calltris glaucaphylla woodlands of north central Victoria.

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 Long-awn Spear-grass 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, Long-awn Spear-grass has an likelihood of being present of 89% 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	Control Rabbits	1144	88.82	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 Long-awn Spear-grass’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 Long-awn Spear-grass’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 Long-awn Spear-grass.

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. * VicFlora (2017). Flora of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria: Austrostipa puberula. Retrieved from: https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/e4c5cf76-1ec6-48e3-bc41-fb5da9d144b6