2025 Wimmera Biodiversity Seminar
The annual Wimmera Biodiversity Seminar was held once again at the Dimboola Golf Club on September 4th, on what was one of the first blue-skyed spring days of the season. Thanks to the tireless efforts of a WBS working team, the event welcomed an agenda of experts and fascination to a full room, for tickets had sold out within weeks of the event being announced. In the absence of national treasure Costa Georgiadis, Jonathan Starks of Hindmarsh Landcare Network took to the mic to MC the event, and Aunty Anne Nikkelson of the Barengi Gadjin Land Council opened the day with a heartfelt Welcome to Country.
Some highlights of the seminar included:
Dr Lindy Lumsden of the Arthur Rylah Institute delivered the keynote presentation titled ‘Microbats Fascinating Creatures of the Night’.
Dr Lindy spoke to the presence of bats across environments citing that as there are more bats across farmland than any other mammal group, landowner knowledge and education is critical to sustaining their species populations. The importance of keeping old growth trees for habitat, increasing biodiversity, and managing pests particularly cats were noted as species sustaining strategies.
‘The Wonders of Bioluminescent Fungi’ by Professor Celeste Linde of Australia National University detailed the strange occurrences of glowing mushrooms, where the ghost mushroom is the sole species of bioluminescent fungi in Australia, and scientists are still debating why fungi glow.
Why do fungi glow? Spore dispersal? Attract insects? Chemical reaction to provide antioxidant protection? Maybe it’s an incidental by-product with no adaptative advantage, as the scientific community considers many hypotheses yet to be proven.
‘The Tail of the Squirrel Glider’ by Dr Elia Pirtle and Phoebe Nowell-Upsticke of Project Platypus presented a project highlighting the landscape scale stress to habitat and biodiversity noted across the south of the Wimmera and across the Grampians since colonization, with a focus on the endangered squirrel glider as a point of rehabilitation hope. The project looks at connecting habitat islands across the district through biolinks and community education, focusing on places where biodiversity is most needed.
Dr Nik Willmont of Melbourne University captivated even the arachnophobics of the audience with his presentation titled ‘The brains of spiders in a world of light pollution’, which detailed the effects of light exposure on the development of Australian orb weaver spiders. Dr Nik’s conclusions indicate that where light aids successful hunting and population growth of spiders, the species are also quicker to mature and losing size and lifespan as a consequence of changing brain development captured by micro-CT scans.
All of the speakers highlighted the importance of habitat for species survival, with a particular focus on old growth trees for hollows and biodiversity across landscapes. The Wimmera Biodiversity Seminar talks concluded with a presentation by Trust for Nature CEO Corinne Proske who highlighted simply that we are losing habitat and species at too rapid a pace and that urgent action is needed, before participants were bused to Snape Reserve for an evening spotting moths for data, and anyone else hidden in the night. The seminar concluded with dinner at the Dimboola Golf Course, of whom catered deliciously all day.
“We urgently need to scale up efforts to protect, conserve, and regenerate native habitat on Victoria’s private land before it is forever gone.”