Subterranean fauna

Western Australia’s subterranean environments support highly diverse communities of stygofauna and troglofauna, many of which occur nowhere else.

Their hidden nature makes them difficult to detect, study and monitor, creating significant knowledge gaps for environmental assessment and conservation.

WABSI’s Subterranean Fauna Program starts with the needs of end users who face uncertainty when making decisions about development, environmental impact and biodiversity management.

Through consultation, the program identifies priority knowledge gaps and coordinates targeted research to address them.

Research spans subterranean fauna biology and ecology, detection and identification, environmental responses and methods that can improve confidence in assessment and management.

By bringing together researchers, regulators and industry, WABSI connects independent science with practical decision needs.

The program aims to improve the evidence available to decision-makers, reduce avoidable uncertainty and support both biodiversity protection and responsible economic development.

Subterranean fauna are diverse, highly specialised and difficult to study. Limited knowledge of their distribution, ecology and responses to disturbance can create uncertainty for environmental assessment, conservation and development decisions.

Western Australia contains globally significant subterranean biodiversity, particularly across regions such as the Pilbara and Yilgarn. Many species have extremely restricted distributions and are adapted to conditions that are difficult to observe directly.

This makes conventional survey and monitoring approaches challenging and can leave important gaps in knowledge about species distributions, ecological requirements, population dynamics and responses to environmental change.

For decision-makers, uncertainty has practical consequences. Environmental assessments may need to account for limited information, while proponents and regulators need confidence that decisions appropriately manage biodiversity risks.

Conservation planning also requires a clearer understanding of which species and subterranean systems are most vulnerable and what management actions can be effective.

WABSI starts with these decision needs, identifies the knowledge gaps that matter most and coordinates research to address them.

Priorities include improving detection and identification, understanding biology and ecology, evaluating environmental responses and developing approaches that strengthen assessment and management.

Better evidence can reduce uncertainty while supporting conservation and sustainable development.

WABSI uses an end user driven approach to ensure research addresses the uncertainties that most affect decisions.

The program brings together subterranean fauna researchers, industry, regulators and other knowledge users to identify critical gaps, review existing evidence and prioritise research where new knowledge can have the greatest value.

Independent research is then coordinated across complementary disciplines and capabilities, including molecular techniques, ecological understanding, survey methods, modelling and environmental assessment.

End users remain connected to the research so findings can be interpreted in the context of actual decisions and translated into practical evidence, tools or guidance.

The program builds capability as well as answering immediate questions, strengthening Western Australia’s longer-term capacity to understand and manage subterranean biodiversity.

This creates a pathway from difficult-to-observe biodiversity to more confident environmental decisions.