Agenda

• Confirmation of Management Committee
• ARC Formalities - CIs to sign 'Grant Verification Form' and Institutions to sign 'Agreement to manage grant form'
• Reframing the budget
• Develop format for applications to the network for funding
• Website presentation by Kojo Design
• Group break-out exercises

Outcomes

Potential areas of focus for funded projects:

Humans:

Human impact during Pleistocene (1st arrival); human response to climate change; holocene intensification of the resource use eg. megafauna; response of the biotas to aridification; monitoring biodiversity in efficient and cost effective ways; impacts of the past climate change on the biota; what were the critical events that led to arrival of humans in Australia?; understanding and managing biodiversity hotspots; Detailed species-level phylogenetics (complete).

Vegetation:

Vegetation change last 200 years-effects on individual taxa (rather than general statements); evolution of flammability and fire tolerance; climate change and Aboriginal distribution and land use; human effects on plant distribution - conscious and unconscious; genealogical concordance in freshwater biodiversity; last glacial maximum effects as last major increase in aridity (28k-18k) on human and other animals and plants.

Emergence of Wider Arid Australia 30m -2m

Was it aridity or other things?; were the radiations progressive? 2010 biodiversity targets - draws in policy people, mulit-disciplinary, but there will be a definite scientific answer; biodiversity hotspots.