A presentation delivered at Intecol (London, 2013) detailing an analysis we conducted to determine which ecosystems in Australia had very little long term ecological monitoring occurring in them.

2. Our capacity to tell an Australian
Ecological Story.
Ben Sparrow
Ausplots Director
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network – The University of Adelaide
Co-Authors: Eleanor Dormontt, Nicole Thurgate, Stuart Phinn and
Andrew Lowe

3. Context
•TERN – provides research infrastructure to Australia’s
ecosystem science and management community
•A range of facilities combining expertise
– Remote Sensing, Soils, Biogeochemical flux, Ecological plots
•TERN is developing a framework to combine information
to inform on the ecology of Australian environments
•The “Field Ecology” components of TERN undertook to
synthesise key findings from long term ecological
research for Australia ( > 10 years of sampling)
•Resulted in a book:

4. Chapters investigate what is know about particular
ecosystems based on long term ecological research
Chapter 3 looks at which ecosystems we have
reasonable sampling density, and which communities
are under-represented (i.e. gaps)

5. Started by gathering information on long term
studies covered in book
Includes location and type of ecological data
NB. The book incorporates data from a great
many, but not all, ecological studies, and is not
intended to be representative – rather what was
easily available and synthesisable

6. Coverage of ecological data assessed against
• Climate – Hutchinson’s Agroclimatic Zones
• Vegetation – NVIS Major Vegetation Groups
• Biomes
• The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia
• Natural Resource Management Regions

7. Hutchinson’s Agro-climatic Zones
Temperate
Alpine
Mediteranean
Tropical
Semi- Arid – Summer rain
Semi-Arid
Winter Rain
Arid

8. MVG
Hummock grasslands Acacia Systems
Chenopods

9. Animate Ecoregions/NRM/Ibra
NRM Regions
The Interim Biogeographic
Regionalisation of Australia

10. GIS analysis
Assessed all ecological sites against these
ecosystem classification layers and summarised
results in terms of depth of coverage

11. Results - Climate
Hut
Red – Poorly Sampled
Yellow – Sampled
Green – Well Sampled

12. Red – Poorly Sampled
Yellow – Sampled
Green – Well Sampled

14. Summary
Environments closer to populated areas are better
monitored
Arid and Semi Arid areas poorly monitored
Spinifex Hummock Grasslands, Acacia
woodlands/Shrublands and Chenopod Shrublands are
all particularly poorly monitored.

15. Hummock Grasslands – 26% Aust

16. Acacia Systems ~18% Aust

17. Chenopods - ~9% Aust

18. -More info in the book

19. - More info in the book
-New TERN infrastructure
helping to fill these gaps
over time.
-Ausplots sampling in
Rangelands – 500 plots

20. - More info in the book
-New TERN infrastructure
helping to fill these gaps
over time.
-Ausplots sampling in
Rangelands – 500 plots
-Standardised nationally
consistent method

21. - More info in the book
-New TERN infrastructure
helping to fill these gaps
over time.
-Ausplots sampling in
Rangelands – 500 plots
-Standardised nationally
consistent method
-Electronic data collection

22. - More info in the book
-New TERN infrastructure
helping to fill these gaps
over time.
-Ausplots sampling in
Rangelands – 500 plots
-Standardised nationally
consistent method
-Electronic data collection
so data automatically
uploaded to AEKOS and S2S

23. - More info in the book
-New TERN infrastructure
helping to fill these gaps
over time.
-Ausplots sampling in
Rangelands – 500 plots
-Standardised nationally
consistent method
-Electronic data collection
so data automatically
uploaded to AEKOS
-Development of new
methods
- www.tern.org.au