ECOLOGY OF THE ENDANGERED DENSE LEEK-ORCHID PRASOPHYLLUM CREBRIFLORUM IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING A BURN AT SURREY HILLS GRASSLANDS, NORTHWEST TASMANIA

摘要

Threatened Plants Tasmania (TPT) has embarked on several orchid monitoring projects around the State. Teasing out population dynamics for threatened orchid species, in terms of individual plant life-history or population stability, is a long-term project that requires laudable attention to detail from the volunteers involved. In the meantime, opportunities can arise to learn about specific aspects of a population and/or site. This paper details one such opportunity that arose from "early season" monitoring of monitored Prasophyllum crebriflorum and Prasophyllum mimulum populations at Westwing Plain (Plates 1 & 2), part of the Surrey Hills Estate in northwest Tasmania. The "early season" monitoring followed a burn of Westwing Plain, and was mainly for the purpose of re-finding all the monitored plants in the blackened landscape. This monitoring has also enabled us to characterise differences in plant regeneration in burnt versus unburnt sites and related grazing effects. This paper provides a background to the monitoring project, an overview of our methods and presentation of our results.