Plant story

Acacia chapmanii subsp. australis

•Endemic to Australia
•Rare and threatened

DEC's Threatened Flora Seed Centre (with the then Conservation Officer from Swan Region) collected seed in December 2000 from the Drummond Nature Reserve (largest population) when the taxon was listed as a priority taxon (P2) because the population was considered at risk due to threatening processes.

This was done in the initial stages of the MSBP project in Western Australia prior to the official signing of the agreement. As the taxon was a priority we sent about 5500 seed over to Kew for safe keeping in our first consignment of seed under the partnership in 2001. We conducted germination tests on a sample of seed and attained 97% germination. The remainder has been put into long term storage under low temperature and low moisture conditions.

The continued decline of the population over the past few years meant that the taxon was ugraded to Declared Rare Flora in 2003. It is highly threatened by salinity, weed invasion, possibly disease, lack of recruitment and senescence. Further seed was collected in December 2003 and the Swan Region in conjunction with CALM's Science Division set up twelve monitoring plots at the site to try to understand the reasons for the decline of the population.

A known quantity of the collected seed was put into the plots because the current status of the soil stored seed was unknown. Some plots were subjected to a fire (May 2004), others remained untreated. All plots were fenced to exclude grazing. The plots are now being monitored. A small sample of seed was also germinated in the laboratory and grown on so that seedling characters could be noted to make it easier to identify any seedlings recruited in the plots. The patterns of recruitment will be monitored over the next few years. First germination of seed was seen in July 2004.

This project shows how seed collected under the MSBP has been used in recovery of a threatened taxon, despite its initial collection being an insurance against extinction. When the first seed was collected, the taxon was not considered as threatened as it is now, and there was no recovery plan being developed. So it was truely a "preemptive collection"!

Story by Anne Cochrane, Department of Environment and Conservation, Western Australia.