We have reached a critical juncture in invertebrate conservation: it is no longer adequate to simply conserve single species. Increasingly, documenting the very existence of unknown local and regional faunas by collecting is critical. Collections will allow us to tell their stories, even when the species represented in them are gone. In the montane archipelago of southeastern Australia, invertebrate faunas are under threat from altered precipitation and fire regimes, rising temperatures, invasive species, and shrub encroachment. Yet, these faunas remain poorly known. Until now, there has never been a systematic, intensive survey across a broad range of taxa in this region. We present findings from a Hermon Slade-funded project that sampled 54 montane sites during the summers of 2024 and 2025. A variety of collection techniques were employed at each site, including leaf litter sampling, Malaise/flight intercept traps, pitfall trapping, and vegetation sweeping. We are currently in the early stages of processing the millions of specimens collected. This presentation focuses on 281,000 larger specimens from leaf litter sample, particularly 24,080 adult beetles and 6,566 millipedes. These have been sorted into morphospecies, revealing over 850 beetle and approximately 50 millipede species. Remarkably (but unsurprisingly), many of these species—and even genera—were previously unknown. Numerous short-range endemic species were identified, most belonging to taxa never previously collected. Species turnover across the region is high, with distinct areas of endemism separated by warmer, drier topographic barriers such as river valleys. Surprisingly, the montane archipelago of southeastern Australia exhibits patterns of endemism in invertebrate like those found in the much better-known Wet Tropics of northern Australia. The mountains are no longer pitch-black but darkness remains.

Species level conservation assessments are the primary mechanism for allocating conservation resources and response in Australia, and for informing conservation planning. However, for data poor and hyper diverse taxa, such as most Australian invertebrates, for which species-level data is lacking, this represents a substantial barrier to effective conservation. Addressing these barriers is important: invertebrates are a functionally important component of the ecosystem and estimates indicate that the continuing extinction rate of Australian invertebrate species is high. In 2022 Australia became a signatory to the Global Biodiversity Framework, making a commitment to zero extinctions. For this ambitious target to be met, there needs to be an overhaul in the mechanisms used to assess the conservation status of, and delineate conservation priorities for, hyper diverse and data poor taxa. We summarise and quantify the key data gaps for Australian invertebrates, using data on species’ occurrences, number of species described, and conservation information, amongst others, and discuss these in relation to the data required to assess species under the IUCN categories and criteria. Our findings show that most species of invertebrate in Australia do not have sufficient data for consideration in species level conservation assessment, with substantial gaps across all key areas included in our analyses. We discuss this in relation to current conservation frameworks and provide recommendations to allow for a more meaningful inclusion of dark taxa in conservation assessment and planning in Australia.

Conservation management of terrestrial invertebrates is best served by robust systematics which
allows for accurate identification of species and higher-level taxa, analysis of community
composition, and assessment of phylogenetic diversity. However, unlike well-studied regions such as
western Europe, the Australian invertebrate fauna is poorly known, with only an estimated 30% of
species formally described and a smaller proportion being identifiable. Using terrestrial arthropods
as a case study, the current state of their systematics will be discussed along with associated
historical problems, and future approaches to comprehensively documenting the continent’s biota
within a generation.

Invertebrates and other poorly known “dark taxa” perform essential ecosystem functions such as decomposition, soil aeration and pollination, and are critical components of trophic food webs. The interdependence between invertebrates and ecosystem functions has led to monitoring of invertebrate diversity as a bioindicator of ecosystem health. Many ecological communities are undergoing declines in extent, structure and composition. Terrestrial ecological communities may be threatened by clearing and disruption to ecological processes. Subsequent invasion by exotic species of flora and fauna, habitat degradation and fragmentation can lead to ecosystem collapse. These threats and any declines in condition of ecological communities directly affect their invertebrate populations. The listing of Threatened Ecological Communities (TEC) under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 provides legal protections to all of the organisms that comprise the ecosystem including the invertebrate fauna. For example, rare and threatened invertebrates endemic to the Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest on Lord Howe Island and the Artesian Springs Ecological Community in the Great Artesian Basin, are protected under the Critically Endangered listings for these TECs.
Whilst there is a race against time to study, understand and protect “dark taxa”, TEC listing provides a safety net to conserve habitats and their populations of invertebrates, fungi, bryophytes and other poorly known biota.

Open biodiversity data infrastructures such as the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) provide valuable tools for informing conservation, but their utility is constrained by data inequities. While some taxonomic groups, such as vertebrates and vascular plants, are represented by extensive occurrence data, much of the world’s biodiversity remains underrepresented in biodiversity records. In the ALA, over 74 million animal occurrence records have been aggregated since 2010, but just under 7 million of those records, or approximately 9%, relate to invertebrates. A consequence of this disparity in the biodiversity record is a taxonomic bias in the representation of groups, such as invertebrates, in conservation planning. In this talk, we will explore the extent and nature of these data shortfalls in the ALA and consider how they reflect real and perceived knowledge gaps. We also discuss ways of addressing these gaps—such as through digitisation efforts and open data publishing—to make biodiversity data more discoverable, a fundamental step in supporting science-led conservation.