Question

A large tract of South-Australian Mallee has been donated to long-term conservation. It has been heavily cleared and grazed for >100-years, and is negatively affected by alien invasive pests and weeds, 15-years of drought, and poor management of fire and irrigation practices.You have been tasked with developing a new monitoring program to evaluate the impacts of a broad-scale restoration project. This project will include a variety of components, including:

(i) alien species removal and exclusion;

(ii) planting and restoration;

(iii) experimental landscape watering.Whilst you have been funded to develop the program, you do not have an infinite budget. Choose one of the three components above (i –iii) and discuss the following aspects of your program.Provide a rationale for your decisions based on the broad goals of the program.

(A)Identify how you might use rapid assessment methods, or similar, to collect the necessary data for your chosen restoration component.

(B)How will these methods be implemented over the long term to allow the consequences of your restoration program to be detected?Specify what part of the ecological community you will target for monitoring the response outcome of your chosen restoration component, and identify the spatial and temporal scales of sampling.

Answer 1

Alien species removal and exclusion can be chosen first out of the three. The reason is to make the landscape free from any unwanted weed or pest which can harm the healthy vegetation.

The plantation and rescue is not a good option to start with as the already present pest and weed can cause harm to the new plantation and delay the restore work.

The landscape irrigation can only add on to the survival and growth of alien species.

A) Land scouting can be an effective way of assessment of the damage and monitoring. The species should be segregated and the trait should be listed. The affected area can be divided in stages of adversity. The study can be narrowed down to the risk zone.

B) The program can be divided into stages;

• Firstly identification- species and the area
• Evaluation I- ecology, pattern
• Process for eradication- administration of chemicals or biological eradication via birds or other pest
• Evaluation II- reduction in number of species vs area

The ecological community with the highest species and diversity should be targeted.

The sampling must cover the spatial and temporal aspect, i.e. the area and the time or season. There can be following scenario;

• Species- exist based on the climate such as can tolerate only cold and widespread through out the landscape
• Species- exist only in hot / warm climate and widespread throughout the landscape
• Species- exist in both climate but only in low area landscape/ restricted area
• Species- exist either of the climate but in restricted area
• Species- exist through out.
• Species- Introduction of new species through out the time span of the study.