Alan Lymbery

This study considers the impact of climate change on two aestivating species, Salamanderfish, Lepidogalaxias salamandroides Mees and Black-stripe Minnow, Galaxiella nigrostriata Shipway, from a drying region, Australia’s Southwestern Province. Lepidogalaxias salamandroides is unique in that it is the sole member of the family Lepidogalaxiidae basally placed as the sister taxon of all Euteleosteomorpha (Li et al., 2010). Both L. salamandroides and G. nigrostriata are highly restricted in distribution to the ephemeral, acidic wetlands in the extreme south-western corner of the region (Berra & Allen, 1989a, b; Morgan et al. 1998), and are small bodied, have relatively short life cycles and annually aestivate underground (Pusey, 1989). This study aimed to quantify any changes in their geographical range and losses of populations, identify the factors that best explain their current distributions, and assess the overall threats to the viability of remnant populations. We hypothesised that: (i) there has been a decline in the distribution of both species since previous surveys, and (ii) the environmental drivers of this distributional decline will be directly linked to climate change.