The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is calling on citizen scientists to boost existing bushfire recovery, data collection and monitoring activities for impacted wildlife.
Announced by the Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, the research program includes funding for a Citizen Science Coordinator position based within the CSIRO’s Atlas of Living Australia to support the delivery of three bushfire recovery projects.
Ms Ley said citizen science projects presented a unique opportunity to improve the science on bushfires, future preparations and bushfire actions.
“The first project will see the CSIRO run a series of weekend long BioBlitz events in bushfire-affected regions across NSW to generate new evidence on the impacts of large-scale fire on biodiversity,” she said.
“A BioBlitz is a collaborative event to discover and record as many living things as possible within a set location and period of time and will involve both scientists and the general public.”
The Minister said the two other projects would see the development of resources to support citizen scientists to monitor post-fire plant recovery and identify active threats, and to digitise historic invertebrate records.
Ms Ley said volunteers had digitised and transcribed thousands of specimens so far from the CSIRO’s National Insect Collection using the DigiVol platform, “getting us off to an incredible start”.
“The BioBlitz events will be delivered by the CSIRO in partnership with the Australian Citizen Science Association, University of New South Wales’ Environment Recovery Project and Minderoo’s Fire and Flood Initiative,” she said.
“With partners from Western Sydney University and the CSIRO’s National Research Collections Australia, all three projects will draw on a pool of experienced citizen scientists to document how Australia’s unique plants, animals and fungi recover from fire and expand our understanding of invertebrates by building a collection that can be used by taxonomists, ecologists and researchers,” Ms Ley said.
Further information on the CSIRO’s BioBlitzes can be accessed at this PS News link.
