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The University of Adelaide - Saltbush Transects, Koonamore Vegetation Monitoring Project

The TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve (or Koonamore Vegetation Reserve (KVR)) is a protected area on Koonamore Station which has been fenced off from grazing since the mid 1920's. In 1925, Professor Theodore George Bentley (TGB) Osborn and his colleagues established a vegetation reserve by fencing off 400 ha of a badly overgrazed portion of the Koonamore station to study the process of recovery of vegetation in the arid zone of South Australia after the removal of grazing pressure. The fence was established to initially keep sheep and later also rabbits from the reserve and allow vegetation regeneration. The resulting long-term vegetation monitoring project at Koonamore is now over 80 years old, making it one of the longest-running monitoring series of its type in the world.; Reserve History: In the mid 1920's Professor TGB Osborn and his colleagues extended their interests in ecology and field physiology of vegetation to the arid zone of South Australia. In 1892 Dixon had warned the Royal Society of South Australia of serious degradation of the soils and vegetation resulting from pastoralism and other alien influences in the region. Equally important to the origin of KVR was the new theory of vegetation succession derived from North American work early in the century. Osborn was particularly concerned with the question as to whether overgrazing by domestic and feral herbivores would result in return of the original vegetation via recognisable 'seral' stages, or whether the changes were ?artificial, mere destructions and as such outside the ecologist's proper field?. Although the concepts of 'succession' and the scope of ecology have developed and changed much since that time, nevertheless it was interest in 'succession to climax' that gave the initial impetus to KVR and many other long-term vegetation studies from that time. The theory of vegetation succession gave rise to the permanent charted quadrat as a technique for observing vegetation change. An extensive series of permanent quadrats was set up on KVR and supplemented by a series of fixed photopoints, in order to pursue the first aim. Although some of these were allowed to lapse within five years, many others were sampled more or less regularly, some almost annually up to the present. Several early publications reviewing the progress of vegetation change resulted. Nothing was done towards the second aim but autecological and population dynamics studies are still being carried out, based on KVR and its records. The Bibliography contains a complete listing of research publications arising from work done on the Reserve. Much of the continuity of the earlier records is due to the efforts of Miss Constance Eardley, who while a lecturer in the Department of Botany, organised annual visits of students and staff to take records and maintain KVR. However, after 1950 the rate of sampling had begun to decline and in the mid 1960's ceased altogether for a period of several years. In the 1970's Dr Russell Sinclair reactivated the recording programme and also began a sustained effort at rabbit control. Although the Reserve was originally fenced with rabbit-proof netting, the rabbits were never eradicated and the population has fluctuated greatly with the seasons. Beginning in 1975, numbers have been kept very low by careful annual inspection and control. Since that time there has been marked seedling establishment of several tree and shrub species which showed little previous regeneration. The Reserve records now contain a history of the vegetation over 50 years without sheep grazing followed by over 30 years without significant grazing by either sheep or rabbits. Kangaroos and emus have never been excluded from the Reserve, as they can jump the fence, and their numbers vary with the seasons. The monitoring work at KVR and the curation of its records is continuing under the direction of Dr Sinclair. The Reserve is also used for post-graduate study and complements the arid-zone research interests of Environmental Biology at the Middleback Field Sation near Whyalla.; Site Description: The Reserve is located in the centre of Koonamore Station, a sheep-grazing lease 400 km north-east of Adelaide, South Australia (Lat. 32º07'S, Long. 139º20'E) in predominantly chenopod shrubland with mean annual rainfall of about 200mm. The area consists of a complex of low sand dunes alternating with sand plain and harder loam soils with travertine limestone on the intervening flats. The tree cover is a low open woodland formation. The sand dunes carry Acacia aneura (mulga), A. burkittii and Eremophila spp., the sand plain a dense stand of Casuarina pauper (blackoak, belah), and the harder loam soils a mixed community of Myoporum platycarpum (false sandalwood) and Alectryon oleifolius (bullock bush, rosewood). Understorey shrubs, which also form low chenopod shrubland communities in some areas, include Atriplex vesicaria (bladder saltbush), A. stipitata and Maireana sedifolia (bluebush). Numerous other chenopodiaceous shrubs also occur, and grass and ephemeral herb cover varies with the seasons. Several species of Senna, Eremophila and other shrubs also occur.; Monitoring activities: Some or all of the following monitoring activities are carried out during visits to the TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve: Vegetation Quadrats, Photopoints, Senna Quadrat (Cassia Corner), Myoporum platycarpum Plants, Saltbush Transects, Senna Populations, Kangaroo Transects, Rabbit Activity Monitoring and Control.; Saltbush Transects: Four point intercept transects were monitored across the eastern and southern reserve boundary to record the spread of <em>Atriplex</em> species into the TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Publication)
2015-01-01
Date (Revision)
2015-01-01
Edition
12/2014

Publisher

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Author

University of Adelaide
259 North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australa, 5000, Australia
Adelaide
South Australia
5000
Australia

Collaborator

University of Adelaide
259 North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australa, 5000, Australia
Adelaide
South Australia
5000
Australia
Keywords (Discipline)
  • Atriplex vesicaria
  • Atriplex sp.
  • Atriplex stipitata
  • Flora
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Climate change impacts and adaptation
  • Environmental management
  • Ecology
ANZSRC Socio-economic Objective
  • Terrestrial systems and management
  • Terrestrial systems and management

Extent

Description
Koonamore Station, South Australia.
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S
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W


Temporal extent

Time period
1989-04-15 2014-11-28

Resource constraints

Use limitation
The Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (CC BY 3.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/
File name
88x31.png
File description
CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
File type
png
Linkage
https://w3id.org/tern/static/cc-by/88x31.png

Title
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence
Alternate title
CC-BY-AU
Edition
3.0
Website
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
These data can be freely downloaded via the TERN AEKOS and used subject to the null licence. Attribution and citation is required as described under Licence and Citation. We ask you to send citations of publications arising from work that use these data to esupport@tern.org.au and citation and copies of publications to jose.facelli@adelaide.edu.au.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Distribution Information

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097
Distribution format
OnLine resource
http://aekos.org.au/collection/adelaide.edu.au/Koonamore/SaltbushTransects

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:3577

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/2209913a-ef40-51d0-9efb-645bc6c940da

Title
TERN GeoNetwork UUID - Advanced Ecological Knowledge and Observation System

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/2209913a-ef40-51d0-9efb-645bc6c940da

Point of truth URL of this metadata record

Date info (Creation)
2015-06-01T00:00:00
Date info (Revision)
2017-05-01T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title
ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
Edition
1

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
Edition
1.0

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
Edition
1.0
Title
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
Date (published)
2021
Edition
1.0

Identifier

Code
10.5281/zenodo.5652221
Website
https://github.com/ternaustralia/TERN-ISO19115/releases/tag/v1.0

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
Climate change impacts and adaptation Ecology Environmental management
ANZSRC Socio-economic Objective
Terrestrial systems and management Terrestrial systems and management

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