The Action Plan for Australian Lizards and Snakes 2017

The Action Plan for Australian Lizards and Snakes 2017 provides the first comprehensive assessment of the conservation status of Australian squamates in 25 years. Conservation assessments are provided for 986 species of Australian lizards and snakes (including sea snakes).

Over the past 25 years there has been a substantial increase in the number of species and families recognised within Australia. There has also been an increase in the range and magnitude of threatening processes with the potential to impact squamates. This has resulted in an increase in the proportion of the Australian squamate fauna that is considered Threatened.

Notably over this period, the first known extinction (post-European settlement) of an Australian reptile species occurred — an indication of the increasingly urgent need for better knowledge and management of this fauna. Six key recommendations are presented to improve the conservation management and plight of Australian squamates.

About the Authors

David Chapple is an evolutionary ecologist whose research focuses on the ecology, evolution, conservation and macroecology of lizards, particularly skinks. His research group at Monash University investigates the evolutionary ecology of environmental change and studies both the species that expand (invasive species) and contract (threatened species) their distributions in response to human-induced environmental change.

Reid Tingley is a quantitative ecologist with an interest in the processes governing extinctions and invasions of amphibians and reptiles. He has developed model-based assessments of reptile extinction risk and was a key contributor to the IUCN Australian squamate assessment. He is currently employed as a lecturer at Monash University.

Nicola Mitchell is a conservation physiologist based at The University of Western Australia, whose research group investigates how species such as sea turtles, terrestrial-breeding frogs and tuatara could adapt to climate change.

Stewart Macdonald is an ecologist who has had a lifelong love of reptiles. His varied research interests have seen him work on climate change adaptation, spatial ecology, conservation and the impacts of feral animals. He is currently a Research Fellow at James Cook University.

Scott Keogh is a Professor in Evolutionary Biology at The Australian National University, where he has been since 1998. He has served as Head of Ecology and Evolution in the Research School of Biology at the ANU since 2012.