**5. Conclusions**

The Sunshine Coast heathlands are ecosystems under pressure from development, and this study aimed to use diversity measures, in concert, to inform conservation priorities. The phylogeny from this study is consistent with the theory that heath evolved on the fringes of a wider Australian rainforest flora, with the phylogenetic diversity being low in comparison with the surrounding rainforest flora. Whilst the heath regional ecosystems on the Sunshine Coast could not be discriminated by SR, GR, FR, or PD, composition and NRI highlighted the distinctive heath communities of the coastal high dunes and the montane areas. The wet and alluvial heaths of the coastal lowlands displayed an overlapping composition but also contained the phylogenetically even sites, possibly pointing to a "refugial environment" characterised by stochastic events and instability. This suggests contrasting conservation implications: the conservation of distinctive communities but also conservation of the dynamic processes in the wet and alluvial "refugial environments". With this enhanced understanding, further examination of the remnant extent and protection status of each regional ecosystem of heath is warranted.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/ 10.3390/d14060436/s1. Figure S1: Map of the study area showing the areas of heath that have been cleared (in black), the areas of heath currently protected in National Parks (in green), and the remaining areas of heath (in red) tenured privately, or in lower levels of protection. The large area of National Park at the top of the map is the Cooloola section of the Great Sandy National Park. The major population centers are in the mid to southern coastal sections of the map.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.P. and A.S.; methodology, A.S., T.R., H.P., M.H. and Y.S.; investigation, H.P. and M.H.; software, A.S., H.P., M.H. and Y.S.; formal analysis, H.P. and A.S.; resources, H.P., A.S. and T.R.; data curation, H.P., T.R., M.H. and A.S.; writing—original draft preparation, H.P.; writing—review and editing, H.P., A.S., T.R. and Y.S.; supervision, A.S., T.R. and Y.S.; project administration, A.S. and H.P.; funding acquisition, H.P. and A.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment—Equity Trustees Charitable Foundation & the Ecological Society of Australia, and also by the the Friends of the Maroochy Bushland Botanic Garden. Specimen collection and fieldwork on protected areas was conducted with permit numbers WITK 17429716 and WITK 18628117 issued by the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, Queensland.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Site data in this study are openly available in the Queensland Herbarium CORVEG database [54]. Voucher specimens are stored at Queensland Herbarium and the University of the Sunshine Coast herbarium. All other data are held in the University of the Sunshine Coast research repository and can be made available following publication of the PhD thesis of the lead author.

**Acknowledgments:** Queensland Herbarium curators and technical staff are thanked for their assistance. The fieldwork assistance of Ann Moran and Allan Ward was deeply appreciated. Rachele Wilson, Brittany Elliott, and USC laboratory and technical staff are thanked for their training and support.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results.
