Latest news with #RBGV
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Fears for incredibly rare plant found in only one place in Australia
There are fears over the survival of an incredibly rare plant found in only one place in Australia. The 'precious' Grampians rice flower, otherwise known as pimelea pagophila, is a delicate and intriguing native that is only known to exist in two small populations in Victoria's Grampians National Park (Gariwerd). While the endangered plant, which is endemic to the Mt William Range, is 'naturally scarce across its known range', botanist Alastair Robinson told Yahoo News Australia local conservationists working to save the species have noticed a dramatic drop. 'Though never very plentiful, its numbers at the known sub-populations have indeed seen a marked decline in recent years,' Robinson, Manager Biodiversity Services for the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV), explained. 'For example, it used to be easily seen around the perimeter of the Mt William car park, but that is no longer the case.' It was this noticeable decline that prompted RBGV scientists and members of Friends of the Grampians Gariwerd to survey the known sites a few months ago, during which they found just 148 of the plants. Now, there are concerns the handful remaining have been totally wiped out by the horrific fires that burned more than 110,000 hectares of the reserve, located about 200km west of Melbourne, over the summer. 'The priority now is to survey in the Grampians to establish survival numbers — if any,' Robinson said. However, it's too early in the season to conduct survival surveys now, he told Yahoo. 'These will take place once the winter growing season is well under way, allowing plants time to develop,' the botanist said. 'In order to have certainty about the identity of the plants, it will be necessary to wait until the flowering period (October onwards) to provide a reliable count of surviving plants. At this point, we simply do not know if any have survived.' Luckily, prior to the destructive blaze, RBGV scientists were able to collect seed from one stand of plants. 'Seed scientists at the Victorian Conservation Seedbank are currently conducting investigations into the germinability/survivability of the collected seed,' Robinson explained. 'It appears that even healthy-looking seed exhibits low survival rates, possibly hinting at an underlying genetic cause.' While they wait for the seasons to change, the team at the seedbank will work to overcome the low survival rates to 'diversify the number of distinct individuals' in their possession, with the hope of translocating them back into the wild. 'This will ideally be supported by population genetics work to ensure that the plants we select for breeding are genetically resilient, and thus more likely to produce viable offspring capable of generating self-sustaining populations,' Robinson said. However, experts came very close to missing out on the opportunity. 🌷 Rare plant that grows in two places in the world discovered in secret location 🌳 Woman's 'incredible' 500-year-old discovery hidden behind invasive weed 🔥 Couple's 'wonderful' encounter amid devastation in national park The Victorian Conservation Seedbank, which safeguards the state's rare and threatened plants, is entirely donor-funded, so the ability to collect seeds depends entirely on grants. 'We currently have a priority list of species to collect across seven different regions based on rarity and likelihood of extinction from threatening stochastic events like bushfires — two of these regions are the northern and southern Grampians,' Robinson told Yahoo. 'A funding bid to collect extensively in these regions last year failed and several of the targets that might otherwise have been collected last season have since had their entire populations burnt out, so [the Grampians rice flower] is not the only plant for which an opportunity was missed. 'Fortunately, the 'Preventing the extinction of Victoria's threatened flora' project funding allocated funds to this species, and so it was possible to make the collection in question when we did.' The Grampians rice flower is one of 17 critically threatened Grampians endemics the Federal Government provides funding for. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
The Guardian
26-01-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
‘Rare and threatened': the bid to save Grampian flowers after fire disasters
The 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. Plumanns Pouton, who is not involved in the RBGV work, says many plants in the Grampians region have evolved strategies for dealing with fire. After a burn, some resprout from their trunk or from woody lignotubers lying underground, while others have dormant seeds that open and germinate under heat or smoke. But for many species, the type and frequency of fire is a 'Goldilocks' scenario, she says. A string of major blazes – in 2006, 2013, 2014 and 2024 – have burned 90% of the Grampians landscape, Plumanns Pouton says. 'The issue with having so many fires in such a short time frame is that plants need enough time to be able to accumulate seed again.' More intense, frequent fires along with other threats like habitat loss, herbivores and disease, will require new solutions, she says, including creative ways to protect plant populations and reduce fire risk, as well as establishing insurance populations. Prof Angela Moles, a plant ecologist who leads the Big Ecology Lab at the University of New South Wales, says plants and their environments were undergoing rapid and often unpredictable changes in response to climate change. 'The federal government in Australia has committed to no new extinctions,' she says. 'But we have hundreds, maybe thousands of different plant species that exist in just a few square kilometres, and if two fires come through too quickly, they're done.' 'We just don't know how it's going to play out. So putting some seeds literally in the seedbank is a really important thing.' Forest and fire scientist Dr Tom Fairman from the University of Melbourne says climate change is prompting more difficult conversations about the best ways to conserve and protect biodiversity, and seedbanks were no longer a futuristic idea but a business-as-usual proposition. Even relatively common, fire-adapted species can struggle to survive when intervals between fires are too short. 'They're not going to be able to handle absolutely everything you throw at them,' Fairman says. According to RBGV, the greatest increase in banked threatened species in a decade came in the wake of the 2019-20 black summer fires. After those megafires, RBGV staff – supported by government funding – collected 105 threatened species from the fire scar: 72 in the form of seeds, with the remainder as cuttings for orcharding in living collections. Russell says the team will be working against time in the fire-damaged landscape of the Grampians to find and carefully collect plant material and then swiftly deliver it to RBGV labs, seedbank and nurseries. 'We're talking about plants where there's just so little genetic material left on the planet that it's an absolute treasure – what you're handling is gold,' he says. The Grampians globe-pea is one of five priority species, along with the Mt Cassell grevillea, a small low-lying shrub with holly-like leaves and striking red flowers considered critically endangered in Victoria, the vulnerable Grampians rice-flower and yellow-flowering Grampians bitter-pea. The endangered Pomonal leek orchid, is also a priority, given the recent fires destroyed one of only two known sites for the endangered species. Russell says it can be physically demanding and sometimes hazardous work, requiring a huge investment of time and expertise. 'The team love doing it because they're all so passionate and driven by their love of plants and wanting to play an active role in reducing the number of these beautiful, endemic plants from going extinct.'
