Fire and Orchids ACT Citizen Science Project

The Fire and Orchid ACT Citizen Science Project aims to better understand how orchid presence and abundance relates to fire history. The Black Mountain Sandstone area has been stratified according to past fire history and 120 points established at locations which sample the range of fire history and other environmental factors.

Interested volunteers are asked to adopt one or hopefully more points and to commit to visiting the adopted point between 24 September 2016 and 16 October 2016 and report orchid sightings within 50m of your adopted points. Reporting is via a smartphone or GPS enabled camera using the normal Canberra Nature Map reporting method.

The grey points in the map are points that have already been adopted, the colour points are waiting for you to click on and claim.

You will also use the same abundance categories. If the plant is widespread around your adopted point the abundance count should relate to the whole 50m radius circle.

You shoudl spend at least an hour at each point and no more than two hours.

Information on perennial plants has been collected from 44 of these points, which are marked with a star picket. These are termed priority one sites. Priority two sites may require using a GPS device to find the required location (help can be provided for the initial visit if needed).

You don’t need to worry too much whether you are within or outside of 50m of your site as we will be able to tell that from the lodged photographs. The 50m radius only needs to be approximate (+/- 10m would be fine)

The results of the study will be analysed to improve our understanding of how fire affects native orchids.

Your participation is encouraged and appreciated, to get started please adopt one or more of the vacant points in the below list.

Questions should be directed to Dr Michael Mulvaney.