page_title: Scottsdale Reserve
section_title: Yellow box grassy woodlands
hierarchical_section_title: Scottsdale Reserve / Biology and ecology / Flora / Yellow box grassy woodlands
caption_attribution_description: Yellow Box, Eucalyptus melliodora. Gundaroo Common, Gundaroo NSW Australia, May 2013.
context_page_description: Scottsdale Reserve is a 1,328-hectare nature reserve on the Murrumbidgee River in south-central New South Wales, Australia. It is 79 kilometres south of Canberra, and 4 kilometres north of Bredbo. It is owned and managed by Bush Heritage Australia, which purchased it in 2006. The purchase was supportive of projects aiming to connect existing fragmented remnant habitat such as K2C. Since the 1870s up until 2006, the land was used for agriculture – primarily sheep grazing with some minor cropping. A significant component of the Reserve has been cleared of native vegetation.
  The reserve is within lands historically attributed to the Ngunawal people. Aboriginal presence in the area was likely due to the availability of resources such as the Bogong moth and the daisy yam. The Murrumbidgee River would have been a good source of fish including the trout cod – currently listed as endangered under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The river would have provided water for many species of terrestrial fauna the Aborigines are known to have utilised for food including the brushtail possum, eastern grey kangaroo and the swamp wallaby.
context_section_description: In New South Wales, grassy box woodlands are characterised in the over-storey by distinct Eucalypt species that change with diminishing rainfall the further one travels from the coast. In the tablelands where Scottsdale Reserve is situated, the dominant eucalypts in grassy box woodlands are yellow box (Eucalyptus melliodora) and red gum (Eucalyptus blakelyi).  The mid-storey consists of sparse shrubs from the Grevillea, Acacia and Cassinia families while the ground layer consists of grasses and herbaceous plants.
  Prior to European arrival, millions of hectares in NSW was covered in grassy box woodlands, today less than 10% remains. The impacts of clearing for agriculture have resulted in fragmentation of the remnant vegetation, leading to efforts in conservation focussing on providing corridors linking these fragments.
  A large amount of cleared former yellow box grassy woodland is now covered in african lovegrass (Eragrostis curvula) throughout the Monaro. The team at Scottsdale and a host of volunteers have planted 20,000 tube-stock plants from the critically endangered vegetation community in a trial to shade out the lovegrass. The team are trialling different methods of restoration ecology in an attempt to understand methods that will best suit the Reserve.
  Natural tree regeneration in Australian agricultural landscapes of species such as Eucalyptus and Allocasuarina has historically been low. Higher historical levels of agricultural activity such as cultivation, grazing and degraded land being invaded by weeds tend to lead to less natural regeneration of eucalypt species and other desired vegetation from the threatened communities. Grazing intensity appears to be the primary determinant of Eucalyptus regenerative success as changes to the seedbed occur due to pasture grass introductions and seedlings are often browsed by either stock or pests reducing their survival rate. In areas without stock access, the abundance of young eucalypt plants can be up to three orders of magnitude greater than sites where stock have regular access.  In the 18 months up to April 2015, more than 4,000 yellow and white box eucalypt plantings at Scottsdale were experiencing survival rates of 96.5%. This level of success can be attributed to the absence of stock in paddocks where the plantings have been implemented and the use of sturdy tree guards to help reduce pest browsing by animals such as the swamp wallaby (Wallabia bicolor) and rabbits.
caption: Yellow Box (8753993206)
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