Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation

Course: Vegetation & Habitat Rehabilitation (ENVM7301)
Course Co-ordinator: Dr Andrew Grigg, Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation

Summary
An introduction to processes that act on the scale of individual plants/animals, communities and ecosystems, and how to manage those processes to efficiently achieve rehabilitation aims. Mine rehabilitation needs to consider how the vegetation interacts with the mine substrate, how the plant community interacts internally and how the vegetation interacts with fauna. Over the last 30 years rehabilitation of minesites has developed from simple approaches of sowing a few grasses onto contoured lands to consideration of ecological structure and functioning. To rehabilitate native vegetation communities, mine rehabilitation officers need to understand how to utilise and manage the various processes of ecosystem functioning.

Assessment activities

Assessment explores a range of aspects that rehabilitation practitioners are likely to encounter and includes some limited field work exercises. All activities are designed to be undertaken externally.

Activities include:

* Assessing and comparing disturbed and undisturbed vegetation communities.

* Exploring how plants function in extreme environments

* Preparing rehabilitation plans for rare flora and fauna species, and

* Preparing rehabilitation success criteria for assessing ecosystem functioning.

Detailed Information

Module A. An introduction to the diversity of mining processes, of vegetation communities and potential vegetation communities that can be the rehabilitation aim.

Module B. To reconstruct vegetation communities that are effective wildlife habitat it is vital to understand firstly what are the basic requirements of plants and animals. This module briefly examines the metabolic and physiological functions that allow plants and animals to exist.

* The first topic in this module introduces animal and plant cells and tissues, the building blocks of life.

* Photosynthesis, respiration and water relations.

* Nutrient acquisition and effects of extreme soil conditions.

Module C. How individual plants/animals interact with their environment.

* Genetics and provenance

* Plant taxonomy and identification

* Seed biology (seed sources, maximising the soil seed bank, overcoming dormancy)

* Seedling establishment, plant growth and reproduction

* Relationships between species including mycorrhiza, mutualism and competition.

Module D. Community ecology. Collections of plants/animals form a community. The community is vital for sustaining ecological processes and has properties beyond that of individual organisms which need to be considered.

* The concepts of community structure and diversity.

* Succession, disturbance and sustainability.

* Creating effective fauna habitat.

Module E. The final module examines rehabilitation success criteria. It introduces soil, vegetation and fauna characteristics that may be surveyed and introduces concepts behind indicators of rehabilitation success indicators. It enables criteria to be chosen that indicate that particular aspects of ecological functioning are occurring successfully (or otherwise) to assist rehabilitation officers to identify problem areas.

Course Learning Objectives
This course has been developed so that you can achieve the following objectives.

* Awareness of the range of diversity of vegetation communities and mining operations and the differing challenges they may impose for vegetation and habitat rehabilitation.
* Familiarity with key processes involved in plant, animal and vegetation community growth and development, how altered environmental conditions affect plant growth.
* Ability to evaluate the most appropriate rehabilitation procedures to achieve rehabilitation goals.
* By being familiar with ecological processes that are important for rehabilitation success, be able to assess the importance of specific processes for a particular area of rehabilitation.
* You will have the background to assess whether other expertise needs to be sought to identify solutions to rehabilitation issues and identify the expertise required.