Hotspot under the microscope

Torndirrup National Park was a hive of activity last week as more than 60 University of Western Australia students visited Albany to conduct fieldwork.

For some of the third year Conservation Biology students, it was the first time they had been out in the field.

With Albany being a biodiversity hotspot it offered an ideal learning environment to assess its diverse flora and fauna.

UWA Albany Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management director Dr Barbara Cook said the fieldwork was part of the unit Saving Endangered Species, which looks at threatened plants and animals.

“Threatened species have an increased risk of extinction and are classed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered,” Dr Cook said.

“We need to manage threats to them to enable their populations to recover.”

She said Banksia verticillata, commonly known as Granite Banksia or Albany Banksia, is vulnerable and students were investigating one of the biggest threats of disease to the plant, the aerial canker or fungus Zythiostroma.

“Many of the plants in the Torndirrup National Park are dying from the canker and appear to be infected,” she said.

“We are collating information to understand the incidence and severity of the canker.”

Students Brighton Downing, 19 and Matthew Long, 28, said they had been inspired.

“A highlight has been fauna trapping to see what pollen birds like honeyeaters and small mammals had been feeding on,” Mr Long said.

“I have always been passionate about the environment and animals from a very young age and wanted a career that I felt would make a difference in the world,” Ms Downing said.

Dr Cook said the course has surged in popularity since being offered in 2007.

“We had about 25 students then and now we have 61, so it has been tremendously popular,” she said.