A structured approach for building multi-community state-and-transition models to support conservation planning

The global decline in the extent and condition of ecological communities has resulted in an increasing demand for recovery and conservation plans. Conservation plans for ecological communities require a management framework with measurable, time-bound objectives, a targeted management strategy, and indicators that enable actions to be evaluated in relation to objectives. Methods that allow for the transfer of knowledge among similar systems and facilitate consistent and comparable plans are essential, especially when resources are constrained. We describe a process to streamline the development of conservation plans by combining functionally similar community sub-types into a multi-community State and Transition Model. We demonstrate this approach in a case study where we use the combined expertise of Australian ecologists to build a multi-community State and Transition Model for eucalypt woodlands of southern Australia – an ecosystem which occupies a vast geographical range across temperate Australia and includes many distinct vegetation communities, a growing number of which are endangered or threatened. We identify commonalities and differences among three broad woodland sub-types including a set of eight general condition states, a list of drivers of transitions among condition states, and the uncertainties and time-frames associated with each transition. Two key findings across all models are that management is state-dependent, and transition directly to the ‘Exemplar’ state from any other state is considered highly unlikely. Other examples of State and Transition Models in the literature are focused on single communities or a significantly smaller scale, and this is the first attempt to construct a nationally relevant multi-community State and Transition Model via a structured and consultative process. Based on this case study, we propose a repeatable protocol for developing multi-community State and Transition Models. This process could improve and streamline the development of robust conservation plans for threatened ecological communities more broadly.