Reading the Countrya free field guide to Sunshine Coast ecology
Menu

Web of life · The Cooloola sand country

Pull any thread

The poorest sand on the coast carries one of its richest webs. Pick anything living here and pull: the rest of the place comes with it.

The Cooloola dune swale in cross-section A drawn cross-section of a Cooloola dune swale. A shallow band of air sits over low scribbly gum and paperbark margins, with crowded wallum heath between them; one heath patch carries a char scar from the last fire. The ground line runs across the middle of the picture. Below it, bleached podzol sand reaches down through coffee rock, holding tree roots, the banksia's dense cluster-root tufts, pale fungal threads, and a dashed line marking the water table. At the right, a tea-dark blackwater pool cuts down through the sand, with frogs at its edge and a small fish below the surface. The anchor residents are named beside their drawings, and labelled chips mark where each working group operates. The complete record of who is here, and how they are joined, follows this picture as text. Ground & litter bleached sand coffee rock the water table Soil & roots the podzol, metres deep The blackwater The last fire Wallum banksia Grass-tree Ground parrot The heath Scribbly gum Paperbark Canopy & tall shrubs The air
The Cooloola dune swale in cross-section A tall drawn cross-section of a Cooloola dune swale, read top to bottom. Under a narrow band of air, low scribbly gum and paperbark crowns stand over crowded wallum heath with a char scar from the last fire; the ground line crosses just below the middle of the picture. Beneath it, bleached podzol sand runs down through coffee rock, holding tree roots, the banksia's dense cluster-root tufts, pale fungal threads, and the dashed water table. At the right a tea-dark blackwater pool cuts down from the swale lip, with frogs at its edge and a small fish in the dark water. The anchor residents are named beside their drawings, and labelled chips mark where each working group operates. The complete record of who is here, and how they are joined, follows this picture as text. Ground & litter bleached sand coffee rock the water table Soil & roots the podzol, metres deep The blackwater Wallum banksia Grass-tree The last fire Ground parrot The heath Scribbly gum Paperbark Canopy & tall shrubs The air

80 living things and features. 145 connections between them. Touch one and the rest of the place comes with it.

Or touch anything in the drawing, or meet everyone who lives here.

Everyone who lives here

80 residents and features, in the working groups they belong to. Press any name to put it in the middle of the web.

the heath · 14

The plants that hold the sand and set the table: a dozen different answers to living on almost nothing.

ground and litter · 4

The layer you actually walk on: sedge in the wet swales, coarse fern over the peat, moss and lichen holding the bare sand still.

canopy and tall shrubs · 6

The paid couriers at the flower-brushes: honeyeaters and lorikeets by day, the feathertail glider after dark, and one thoroughly deceived wasp, each carrying pollen as it feeds.

the heath · 5

Bees, flies, beetles, butterflies and moths at the same flowers as the birds, in far greater numbers and with far less credit.

the heath · 5

The insects that live on the plants rather than at them: leaf chewers, sap-suckers, gall-makers, and the moth that writes on the gums.

the heath · 5

The birds that live inside the heath itself, in the tussocks and the low thick cover, rather than passing over it.

the heath · 7

What eats the eaters: two hunting birds, three kinds of ambush and web, and the wasps that lay their eggs inside everything else on this list.

canopy and tall shrubs · 2

The animals that work this country after dark and spend the day inside something only an old tree can offer.

the blackwater · 11

The frogs, fish, eels and underwater traps whose refuge is water too acid for their enemies.

the blackwater · 3

The predators of the blackwater. The acid holds the mosquitofish back and does nothing whatever about a heron, a snake or a dragonfly larva.

the blackwater · 1

The introduced fish pressing at the edge of the blackwater: held back by the acid, and the reason the acid matters.

ground and litter · 1

The introduced animal the acid cannot touch: a pig ploughs the wet heath and the swamp margins over for what is buried under them, and takes the frogs and the swamp invertebrates as it goes.

soil and roots · 3

The below-ground trade in sugar and minerals, measured here exactly once, the bacteria that bring in the nitrogen, and the night diggers that sow the fungal partner as they feed.

ground and litter · 8

The crew that takes the place apart again: fungi through the hard leaves and the dead wood, termites and millipedes and mites through what is left, ants moving seed and sand, and under the swamp a slow anaerobic shift whose unfinished work is the peat and the tea-brown water both.

The features of the place the stage itself · 5

Abiotic is not background here. The sand, the water, the fire and the swamp hold up more of this web than any single resident, so each one is a place to stand like everything else.

Neighbouring stories just past the boundary · 2

These live at the edge of this web, not inside it. They appear because a connection or a signpost reaches them, and they are not drawn in the scene, because the scene holds only this place.

See the complete network all 145 relationships as one abstract graph, with each stroke saying where its evidence comes from
The Cooloola web drawn as a connected graph. Every resident and feature is a dot, gathered into its working group, and every documented connection is a line between two dots: the more continuous the line, the stronger the evidence, and the arrow points at the taker. Selecting a dot lights its own connections; every line opens the evidence behind it. The same information follows as text below. nutrient cycling · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere pollination · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology grazing · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology pollination · General ecology pollination · General ecology seed dispersal · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology grazing · General ecology host plant · General ecology host plant · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology decomposition · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology grazing · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology pollination · General ecology pollination · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology pollination · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology seed dispersal · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology pollination · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology pollination · General ecology pollination · General ecology pollination · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology pollination · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen here decomposition · General ecology decomposition · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology a fungal partnership · General ecology a fungal partnership · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology host plant · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen here decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology predation · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen here predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology grazing · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology nutrient cycling · General ecology seed dispersal · General ecology decomposition · General ecology pollination · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology The tongue orchids. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. Wallum banksia. 7 relationships. Opens its entry. Paperbark. 9 relationships. Opens its entry. The mistletoes. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The grevilleas. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. Grass-tree. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. Dune pioneers. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The native peas. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The wattles. 7 relationships. Opens its entry. Scribbly gum. 8 relationships. Opens its entry. The sundews. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The boronias. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The zamia. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. Christmas bells. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The mosses and liverworts. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The lichens. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The swamp water fern. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The wallum sedges. 9 relationships. Opens its entry. The eastern spinebill. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The feathertail glider. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The little wattlebird. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The lorikeets. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The orchid dupe wasp. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The white-cheeked honeyeater. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The flower beetles. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The heath butterflies. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The hoverflies. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The native bees. 8 relationships. Opens its entry. The night moths. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The gall insects. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The heath grasshoppers. 7 relationships. Opens its entry. The leaf beetles. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The lerp insects. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The scribbly gum moth. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The brown quail. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The ground parrot. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The mistletoebird. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The red-backed fairywren. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The tawny grassbird. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The grey butcherbird. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The laughing kookaburra. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The orb weavers. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The parasitoid wasps. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The praying mantises. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The robber flies. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The wolf spiders. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The microbats. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The tawny frogmouth. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The honey blue-eye. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The Oxleyan pygmy perch. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The Cooloola sedgefrog. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The wallum sedgefrog. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The wallum rocketfrog. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The acid-water fish of the wallum. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The shortfin eel. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The longfin eel. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The wallum froglet. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The bladderworts. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The acid frogs of the wallum. 7 relationships. Opens its entry. The dragonflies. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The red-bellied black snake. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The white-faced heron. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The mosquitofish. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The feral pig. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The root market. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The nodule bacteria. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The forest diggers. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The ants. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The litter fungi. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The millipedes. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The peat microbes. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The springtails and mites. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The termites. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The wetland invertebrates. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The wood-rot fungi. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. Fire — the force that draws the boundaries. no connections here yet. Opens its entry. The wallum. 17 relationships. Opens its entry. Podzolisation — how sand goes bankrupt. 14 relationships. Opens its entry. Paperbark swamp and blackwater sedgeland. 13 relationships. Opens its entry. Water — the force that sorts the country. 12 relationships. Opens its entry. The flying-foxes. 1 relationship. Opens its entry.
Swipe sideways to move across the network. Tap a group or resident to simplify it here. Every line is a connection, and its stroke tells you how well it is evidenced. The arrow points at the taker; arrows both ways mark a trade. Select a line to read its evidence, a dot to open its entry. Seen here Seen elsewhere General ecology Our reading a resident a feature of the place a neighbour

About this web

This web holds 145 relationships across 80 residents and features, and every one of them is on the page. It shows the plants, animals and fungi you can expect to find in this country and how they depend on one another. Some of that is drawn from the book's own chapters and some is the ordinary, well-understood ecology of this kind of place; the counts are computed from the shipped records, never typed in.

A honeyeater at a banksia flower and a fungus in the leaf litter belong here because that is how this country runs, whether or not anyone has published the observation on this exact ground. Where a relationship does rest on a particular study or a passage of the book, its card says so and its mark says where that knowledge came from: 3 recorded in this sand country itself, 5 recorded for these species elsewhere, and 137 that are the general ecology of this kind of country. Those marks are about the record, not about the doubt: a honeyeater visiting a banksia flower is not a hypothesis, it is something nobody has published for this stretch of sand. Every relationship, printed once with its full evidence, quotation and source, is on the evidence register.

Whose country this is

The Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) people are the Traditional Owners and continuing custodians of this country, and have read it for far longer than any source on this page. This release presents the published scientific record only. Knowledge of Country belongs to its custodians, and it would enter this product only through proper collaboration and cultural protocols, which has not yet happened. That is the scope of this page, stated plainly, not a gap we will quietly fill.

What the marks mean

  • Seen here · Recorded or measured in this sand country itself.
  • Seen elsewhere · Documented for these species, and not as a record made at this place. The source may well cover this coast; what it does not carry is the observation here. The tier word, not the verb, says where the work was done.
  • General ecology · Established for these species generally, and expected here for that reason. What is missing is the local record: nobody has published the observation made in this sand country yet.
  • Our reading · Our editorial interpretation, signed as such.

No resident here carries a location, by construction: the records this page is built from have nowhere to put one. The ground parrot lives in this country, and this page will never say where more closely than that.