Ecology of Tasmania
Gondwana began its fragmentation in the middle and upper Jurassic, and the arrival of benthic invertebrate fauna is visible in fossil deposits.
It was then that angiosperm flora such as Nothofagaceae and Proteaceae colonized New Zealand and New Caledonia, from South America, along the Antarctic margin of Gondwana: Antarctica, mainland Australia and Tasmania.
The isolation of the island was not absolute, given the rise and fall of sea level caused by the ebb and flow of ice ages.
Seeds of grasses, spores of algae, and the eggs of molluscs and other invertebrates commonly establish in remote areas after long journeys of such types.
The most ancient communities in Tasmania have an ancestry that extend back to a time when the Earth's continents were all joined as single landmass known as Pangaea which existed more than 200 million years ago.
Pangaea split from east to west into Laurasia, comprising North America and Eurasia, and Gondwana, the two remaining connected at Gibraltar with the Tethys Sea separating them.
Millions of years ago, Antarctica was warmer and much wetter, and supported the Antarctic flora, including forests of podocarps and southern beech.
Antarctica was also part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwanaland, which gradually broke up by continental drift starting 110 million years ago.
Some genera that originated in Antarctic flora are still a recognised major component of New Caledonia, Tasmania, mainland Australia, Madagascar, India, New Zealand, and southern South America.
Antarctic beech (Nothofagus moorei) is found in eastern New South Wales' cool temperate rainforests and cloud forests, but does not occur in Victoria or Tasmania.
Australia rafted north and became drier; the humid Antarctic flora retreated to the mainland east coast and Tasmania, while much of the rest of Australian vegetation became dominated by Acacia, Eucalyptus, Casuarina and xeric shrubs and grasses.
Good noted, as had Joseph Dalton Hooker much earlier, that many plant species of Antarctica, temperate South America and New Zealand were very closely related, despite their disjunction by the vast Southern Ocean.
[citation needed] Investigations of Upper Cretaceous and Early Tertiary sediments of Antarctica yield a rich assemblage of well-preserved fossil dicotyledonous angiosperm wood which provides evidence for the existence, since the Late Cretaceous, of temperate forests similar in composition to those found in present-day southern South America, New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania.
[2] Tasmania has extremely diverse vegetation, from the heavily grazed grassland of the dry midlands to the tall evergreen eucalypt forest, alpine heathlands and large areas of cool temperate rainforests and moorlands in the rest of the state.
A clonal stand of male Huon pines at Mount Read maintained itself by vegetative reproduction for what is estimated to be more than 10,000 years.
When the large landmass of the Australian continent developed a drier and harsher climate, this type of forest was reduced to those boundaries areas.
Many members of the late Cretaceous - early Tertiary Gondwanan flora survived in Tasmania and New Caledonia's equable climate.
Known colloquially as the Tasmanian tiger for the distinctive striping across its back, it became extinct in mainland Australia about 4,000 years ago because of competition with the introduced dingo.
Owing to persecution by farmers, government-funded bounty hunters and, in the final years, collectors for overseas museums, it appears to have been exterminated in Tasmania.
The size of a small dog but stocky and muscular, the Tasmanian devil is characterised by black fur with white patches.
As with a lot of wildlife, fast vehicles on roads are a problem for Tasmanian devils, which are often killed while feeding on other road-killed animals such as wallabies.
Tasmania is home to the largest breeding population of growling grass frogs (Litoria raniformis), a vulnerable species, which has declined over much of its range.
Former Tasmanian Police Commander Dean led an investigation into the alleged importation and release of foxes into Tasmania.
including Dr David Obendorf have been calling for a Federal Police investigation into allegations that evidence has been planted and this is all part of an elaborate hoax to receive funding from the Commonwealth.
