‘Rare and threatened’: the bid to save Grampian flowers after fire disasters
he Grampians globe-pea, a critically endangered wiry shrub, had finished flowering and was fruiting when fires tore through its home in the Grampians national park, in western Victoria. The spiny plant with vibrant orange and yellow flowers is extremely rare and restricted to a handful of sites, including areas within the 76,000 hectares that burned over December and January.
Finding the globe-pea will be a priority when a plant rescue mission led by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria heads to the Grampians to search for survivors and signs of life amid the charred landscape.
“We do not yet know the extent of the damage,” says the RBGV director and chief executive, Chris Russell, adding that the work of creating backup populations of species before they are “lost forever” is urgent and ongoing, as climate change causes “disruption to the whole system”.
Along with the state’s environment department and local community groups, the RBGV is increasing its conservation efforts in the Grampians, known as Gariwerd to Indigenous peoples, after recent bushfires.
When conditions improve, a team of botanists and horticulturalists will assess the damage and collect seeds and cuttings from threatened species to store in the Victorian Conservation Seedbank, a repository of seeds and spores from native plants, and the RBGV’s living collections.
The national park is a biodiversity hotspot, with its ancient sandstone cliffs, craggy slopes and surrounding plains, heathy woodlands and forests providing habitat for roughly a third of the state’s flora, including 49 unique plant species not found anywhere else in the world, according to Parks Victoria.
“It’s such a diverse geological and environmental space,” Russell says. “There’s a really high proportion of plants that only exist there, that are endemic to the Grampians. A whole range of those are rare and threatened.”
What happens next is critical.
Even fire-adapted species could be lost if they “get smashed again” by fires next year, or a couple of years later, he says, without enough time to regrow, set seed, reproduce and come to maturity.
Dr Ella Plumanns Pouton, who researches the influence of fire on biodiversity, including in the Grampians, says fire can be a driver and a threat to plant diversity.
At a community level, fire shapes vegetation structure, she says, allowing light to come in, and creates niches and opportunities for new species to germinate.
International Plant Scientist Awards:
Website:plantscientist.org
Nomination Link
Registretion Link
Here with connected:
Blog
Instagram
Pinterest
YouTube
Twiter
Comments
Post a Comment