*4.5. A Refugial Environment?*

The phylogenetically even sites were all located in the wet and alluvial ecosystems, and despite being scattered across the coast, were similar in terms of species composition and phylogenetic distance. Conservation priorities have focused on refugial areas, which have facilitated survival of biota for millennia and are likely to do so into the future [106–109]. Phylogenetically even sites may be indicative of refugial areas [17,110], although it is essential to be mindful of historical evolutionary processes [12,27]. Moisture has been a factor that contributes to sites acting as refugia, with dated core samples from the wetlands of nearby Stradbroke Island suggesting the wetlands have acted as refugia from regional drying for over the last 100,000 years [111]. Waterways, mesic habitats, and riparian areas have been linked to relictual taxa [49,89,112–114]. Refugia act as buffers to extreme conditions, and it is important to understand the evolutionary history of sites and the processes being protected by them. It could be argued that these wet and alluvial heath areas, with overlapping composition, are dynamic "refugial environments" and conserving these areas is protecting these ongoing processes of change. It is possible that they are not so much fixed in space as reflecting the concept of "shifting refuges", driven partly by stochastic events [115].
