BugWise

Photo: © Australian Museum.

People have responded in two main ways to the realisation that our environment is degrading. The first is to protect areas that are less affected through National parks and reserves. The second is to control our damaging activities and restore the affected areas. This second response is relatively new and its success as a method is not known.

Habitat rehabilitation projects are common in Australia. They replace weeds with native plants with the aim of restoring a natural ecosystem. It is assumed this provides habitat for native animals, increasing biodiversity and therefore environmental health.

This is an assumption that is actually very difficult to test. We know instinctively that it is a good thing but it is very difficult and expensive to measure biodiversity or habitat health accurately. This means monitoring the progress or measuring the results of habitat improvement projects is very difficult. Over the course of the last five years in New South Wales alone approximately $99 million was spent on habitat improvement projects. To know if this money is well spent and how projects could be more effective, inexpensive monitoring methods are urgently required.

The Australian Museum and NSW Environmental Trust project 'The response of invertebrates to riparian restoration', is studying the effect of restoration on biodiversity. By comparing invertebrate communities in habitats in different stages of restoration, the team are understanding how invertebrate communities are effected by restoration. This is an important gap in our biological knowledge as invertebrate communities represent a largeproportion of biodiversity. Invertebrates are also responsible for a number of 'services' like plant pollination and nutrient recycling vital to healthy ecosystems.

Measuring invertebrate communities is one way of checking the health of the environment. Traditional methods of doing this require a great deal of time, money and expertise. Therefore the above project hopes to find new ways of measuring the differences in the study areas. The aim is to find easily measurable aspects of the environment that also reflect the changes shown by invertebrate communities. This will provide methods that allow a rapid habitat health check and can be used by anyone.

Potential measures then need to be trialled by members of the community to provide more data on their accuracy and ease of use.

The BugWise program was designed to raise the awareness of the importance of invertebrates in the environment and allow community members to help in this ongoing research. It is a pilot study being conducted in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales.