606-310 Field Botany

Botany 606-202 or 606-204 or 606-207.

This subject is structured around the fieldwork excursion in early February and covers the basic skills that are required to undertake a field-based botanical activity such as a flora survey or an environmental impact assessment, or to proceed to research in a field-based botanical discipline. Topics to be covered include:

• taxonomy of the Australian flora;

• field identification of major families and genera of plants;

• collection and preservation of plant specimens; mounting and cataloguing specimens; curatorial skills; nomenclature;

• techniques for description and classification of vegetation; structural types, floristic associations, measures of abundance (cover, density, basal area, biomass), sampling techniques (quadrats, line transects, plotless methods), sampling scale and species-area relationships, profile diagrams, life-form spectra;

• soils; and

• vegetation mapping.

At the end of this subject, students will have the skills for:

• identification, description and quantification of plants and plant communities in the field;

• collection, cataloguing and preserving plant specimens; and

• constructing a vegetation map.

A written report of a maximum of 2000 words due at the end of the semester (40%); curated collection of up to 20 plants due at the end of the subject (20%); assessment of field activities during the subject (20%); a 2-hour practical examination in the summer semester examination period (20%).