More than 8,000 continental islands sit just off the coast of Australia, many of them uninhabited and unspoiled. For thousands of species, these patches of habitat offer refuge from the threats they face on the mainland.
More than 8,000 continental islands sit just off the coast of Australia, many of them uninhabited and unspoiled. For thousands of species, these patches of habitat offer refuge from the threats they face on the mainland.
Coastal islands are also a valuable resource for ecologists studying how communities of plants colonize new habitats and change over time.
Now, we have created a new publicly available database known as A-Islands, which draws on decades of plant surveys (where botanists visit a particular location and record the plants found there).
This unique collection of surveys draws on data about more than 6,500 plant species from over 850 islands. Some vast islands stretched for kilometers, while others were as small as a tiny apartment.
Our new research, published in the Journal of Vegetation Science, provides new insights into how Australia’s coastal islands have changed over time, and can help with plant monitoring and conservation efforts as the climate warms.
We built A-Islands by painstakingly digitizing plant surveys from old books and records, and speaking with botanists and organizations all over Australia.
A-Islands is made up of 1,350 island botanical surveys dating back to the 1940s, from over 135 different sources. We are still adding more.
The stories of how the data was collected were fascinating.
