Refugia bird surveying and bird banding at the Charles Darwin Reserve Homestead, which is a joint initiative between Bush Heritage & Conservation Council of WA to investigate the response of 10 biological indicators to a changing climate.
What’s the ‘Climate Change Observatory Project’ about?

This exciting project will monitor the effects of climate change on animals and plants for the next 30 years and is expected to provide unprecedented data for improving climate change modelling and informing land and wildlife conservation. This project aims to answer the following prickly questions: Which types of animals and plants are moving and in which direction? Which sorts of species are weakening? Which are prospering? How are they adapting?

One thing is for sure, there is an acute need for long-term research into climate change impact on plant and animal survival in Australia – currently less than 1% of published research on the impact of climate change on global biodiversity is from the southern hemisphere. Nic Dunlop, Citizen Science Project Coordinator at the Conservation Council of Western Australia explains, 'that’s how this innovative project came about; we needed to establish how climate change will impact wildlife and how plants, animals and ecosystems are already responding.'

For more information, contact Dr Nic Dunlop on 08 9420 7266 or email [email protected]

http://www.ccwa.org.au/citizen_science

Location: Charles Darwin Reserve is a Bush Heritage Homestead site which is 355km north of Perth