Donald P. A. Sands

Characterisation of alkaloids from some Australian Stephania (Menispermaceae) species

Chemical investigations of some Stephania species native to Australia and reportedly employed by Aboriginal people as therapeutic agents, are described. The alkaloids from the forest vines Stephania bancroftii F.M. Bailey and S. aculeata F.M. Bailey (Menispermaceae) have been isolated and characterised. The major alkaloids in the tuber of the former species are (-)-tetrahydropalmatine and (-)-stephanine, whereas these are minor components in the leaves, from which a C-7 hydroxylated aporphine has been identified. The major tuber alkaloids in S. aculeata are (+)-laudanidine, and the morphinoid, (-)-amurine, whose absolute stereochemistry has been established by X-ray structural analysis of the methiodide derivative. No significant levels of alkaloids were detected in S. japonica. Complete and unambiguous 1H and 13C NMR data are presented for these alkaloids.

Isolation and Structure of Some Constituents of the Australian Medicinal Plant Tinospora smilacina ('Snakevine')

The structures of a number of compounds isolated from the stems of Tinospora smilacina (known as ‘snakevine’) have been determined. The known clerodane-type compound columbin is a major component, and two new minor compounds incorporate a heavily oxygenated tetrahydrofuran ring in place of the furan ring of columbin. The lignan isolariciresinol is also shown to be a minor component, along with dihydrosyringenin. The traditional medicinal use of the vine, particularly in countering snake venom, may be associated primarily with the presence of columbin.

Alkaloids from some Australian Stephania (Menispermaceae) Species

Abstract The alkaloids from forest vines endemic to eastern Australia, viz Stephania bancroftii F. M. Bailey and S. aculeata F. M. Bailey (Menispermaceae) have been examined. The major alkaloids in the tuber of the former species are (-)-tetrahydropalmatine and (-)-stephanine, whereas these are minor components in the leaves, from which we have characterised a C-7 hydroxylated aporphine. The major tuber alkaloids in S. aculeata are (+)-laudanidine and the morphinoid, (-)-amurine whose X-ray structure is presented.

The Food Plants of the Richmond Birdwing

The larvae of many Papilionidae feed solely on the leaves, and at times the flowers, stems and seed capsules, of plants in the family Aristolochiaceae (Straatman and Inoue 1994), with this host specificity marked and well entrenched in some groups. Most Troidini and Zerynthiini feed exclusively on these plants, as does the parnassiine Archon appolinis (Herbst). In North America, for example, the troidines known as the Polydamus Swallowtail (Battus polydamus (L.)) and the Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor (L.)) feed on indigenous American aristolochias and the well known introduced Dutchman’s Pipe vine (Aristolochia elegans) (p. xx), a native of South and Central America.

Habitat Restoration and Outcomes

The general themes for restoring habitats for O. richmondia are fundamentally simple in principle – namely, to increase supply of suitable P. praevenosa and nectar plants, and to remove A. elegans from sites that are otherwise secured against further degradation. However, the variations in climate, site condition and topography across the butterfly’s range introduce many complications. Individual site differences in general condition, weed invasion and susceptibility to other threats mean that these common themes may need to be tailored for each individual locality. Overlying the entire programme is the target of area-wide (that is, range-wide) restoration of landscape hospitality and connectivity.

Conservation Needs and Early Concerns

The general and urgent need for conservation of O. richmondia devolves largely on the losses of rainforests in the region, a process that has had severe impacts on many native animals and plants, and for which the Richmond birdwing has become a notable flagship species to publicise the less heralded plight of many other invertebrates, and also some of the basic principles of landscape ecology and the critical specialised needs of interdependences between species in communities. Whilst loss of lowland rainforests of subtropical eastern Australia, and the food plant vine P. praevenosa are regarded as principal threats to the Richmond birdwing, the implications of those losses are very broad, despite notional formal protection of the communities. As emphasised earlier, suitable forest areas are now highly fragmented. In Queensland, this type of lowland rainforest survives only as fragments near the coast along Kin Kin Creek, east of Pomona, near Caloundra, and at Burleigh Heads National Park. Lower sub-coastal birdwing habitats are further inland on ridges and low valleys of the Blackall, Conondale and D’Aguilar Ranges, at Mount Tamborine, and NSW Border Ranges. In NSW there are coastal birdwing habitats in national parks, patchily distributed from the Tweed River, Byron Bay and Broken Head National Parks on the coast, and on Mount Warning and further inland near Mallanganee, near the Richmond Range. Although the vine was previously known in the area, it is not known if there are any rainforests where P. praevenosa is currently present in the Clarence River Catchment, where almost all riparian rainforest was cleared for grazing cattle in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The conservation status of P. praevenosa has been evaluated by the State Government, to be ‘lower risk’ in Queensland while the vine is not considered to have conservation significance in New South Wales.

Foundation of the Programme: Engaging the Community

The formal project on conservation of the Richmond birdwing programme began in 1992, and was progressively re-organised from 2001 to follow guidelines in the Recovery Plan (1996). Under different groups, coordination of the activities by widely distributed members of the community was needed, following the conclusion of the school-based Adopt-a-Caterpillar Scheme (p. xx). That project had received substantial funding from donors but members of the community wished to see other birdwing recovery actions coordinated by a community-based group, particularly cultivation, planting, monitoring and mapping the food plant vines, and longer-term plans to restore habitat corridors for the birdwing over a substantial area in south-eastern Queensland and north-eastern NSW. ‘Recovery’ activities by all groups, followed the basic objectives and criteria listed in the Draft Recovery Plan (1996), and these were used in many successful bids for external funds from government agencies and industries, with some of those bids including informal reviews of progress since 1996. The first substantive review of progress was made by Sands and Scott (2001), and later commentaries made by Sands (2008) and most recently by Valentine and Johnston (2012).

Revising the Draft Recovery Plan

The Draft Recovery Plan (1996) for O. richmondia was prepared following the enthusiasm by members of the community to become involved in practical recovery activities. By around that time, awareness of the butterfly’s increasingly parlous status and its conservation need had become widespread. The CSIRO Double Helix Science Club ( Chap. 6) had introduced conservation projects for the butterfly to more than 300 schools in south-eastern Queensland and northern New South Wales and students pursued a range of experiments with the food plant, which itself had become rare and attracted conservation concerns. The plan was designed to promote coordination of community groups, state government and other interest groups in the expectation that this would lead to a practical and sustainable conservation plan for the Richmond birdwing butterfly, and promote action to address the conservation issues then deemed important. In the sense implied here, ‘Recovery’ is ‘the process by which the decline of an endangered, threatened or extirpated species is arrested or reversed, and threats are removed or reduced to improve the likelihood of a species’ ‘persistence in the wild’ (BCIRT 2008), ideally using a recovery strategy that ‘reflects the best available knowledge and experience, setting recovery goals and objectives, and recommending approaches to recover the species’.

Expanding the Programme. The Development of Community Networks: Their Achievements and Roles in Conservation and Recovery

Much of the recent community enthusiasm and their roles in conservation progress has been coordinated through extensive and expanding networks of expertise and interest, bringing together the various members of the constituency concerned with the wellbeing of O. richmondia. These successive networks have matured and changed somewhat in character, whilst maintaining the primary focus. The community networks were initiated following the continuing interest in the birdwing conservation project, highlighted when the Project was announced to the journalists attending the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. In the years following, CSIRO scientists helped to form three community-based groups, the Richmond Birdwing Conservation Project 1999–2004 (RBCP, later becoming a section of The Hut Environmental and Community Association, THECA), the independent Richmond Birdwing Recovery Network Inc. (RBRN), formed in 2005–2010, and the Richmond Birdwing Conservation Network (RBCN) formed in 2010 to absorb RBRN members, and initiated under the broader umbrella of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. Members of earlier networks supervised schools projects and later propagated and dispersed for planting in excess of 30,000 vines from 1994 to 2002. Subsequently approximately 12,000 vines were planted between 2005 and 2011 by various community catchment groups. RBRN continued to map the location of wild food plants and began recording data on adult butterfly sightings in 2006.

The Natural Habitats and Resources for the Richmond Birdwing

In this chapter we provide background information on the environments frequented, or historically frequented, by the Richmond birdwing, to furnish the ecological context within which efforts for the species’ conservation are being undertaken. The major focus addresses the supply of the most critical consumable resource, the vine Pararistolochia praevenosa, and the environments and vegetation associations in which it thrives. Techniques developed for propagation and plantings (Appendix 1) to contribute to the understanding of habitat enhancement and extension and their roles in defining suitable environments are also discussed. As with any specialised insect herbivore, the nature of threats to the food plant(s) and prospects for mitigation and recovery must be evaluated before recovery is attempted. In the case of the Richmond birdwing, its lowland food plant has become rare in the wild and is considered to be at risk in Queensland. The birdwing recovery programme has therefore also focussed on understanding the ecology of the food plant and protecting remaining suitable habitat patches, as well as on propagating more food plants and managing the ongoing threats to breeding birdwing populations.