The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is calling on nature lovers to become involved in an Australia-wide native plant hunt to monitor how vegetation is recovering after the devastating floods and bushfires.
Program Lead at the CSIRO’s Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), Erin Roger said ALA had teamed up with the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, and Western Sydney University (WSU) on the new Flora Connections initiative.
Dr Roger said Flora Connections was aimed at harnessing the passion of amateur flora groups and citizen scientists to help monitor fire and flood recovery.
She said it was important work, “with the cost of recent weather events not only impacting people and wildlife, but also affecting many important native plants”.
“As extreme fires and floods become more common, plants – which are vital to keeping our ecosystems healthy – also need to recover,” Dr Roger said.
“Through Flora Connections, we want to better-understand how our native plants are recovering post-fire and flood, and that means boots on the ground,” she said.
“That’s why we’re urging Australians who love getting out into nature to get involved, to help us collect the information we need while they’re exploring.”
Dr Roger said volunteer amateur botanists could visit the Flora Connections website to access information, documentation forms and other material to help gather the data required and submit them.
“After the information is submitted to Flora Connections, it will then be made available by the Atlas of Living Australia, our national biodiversity data infrastructure, which will be of huge value to support the science of bushfire impacts on plants,” she said.
Project Principal Scientist and Associate Professor at WSU, Rachael Gallagher said the goal of Flora Connections was to connect community knowledge with Government and researchers to help develop an up-to-date understanding of how plant species had fared after extreme events.
“There’s a wealth of knowledge in the hands of the bushwalkers of Australia and we’re keen to harness it to bring much-needed data about how plants respond to extreme events to the surface,” Dr Gallagher said.
Further information on Flora Connections can be accessed at this PS News link.
