About

Design and Development

Grasslands is a collaboration between the University of Melbourne's School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences and Ecolinc, a Department of Education Specialist Science Centre specialising in environmental science curriculum programs for F–12 students and teachers. The app is a greatly expanded version of Ecolinc’s earlier app Biodiversity of the Western Volcanic Plains. This Grasslands app is a companion resource to the book Land of Sweeping Plains: Managing and Restoring the native grasslands of south-eastern Australia.

Grasslands would not have been possible without generous funding provided by the Myer Foundation and the dedication of the many individuals who donated time, expertise and photos. The Myer Foundation supported four native grassland conservation and education projects between 2012 and 2015 which have significantly increased grassland knowledge and awareness.

Grasslands: Biodiversity of south-eastern Australia is dedicated to the memory of Suzanne Clark, former Director of Ecolinc.

Project Manager and content editor: Associate Professor Nicholas Williams, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Project Officer: Adrian Marshall, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Design and programming: CouchCreative

Fauna species profiles: Nicole Mason (Ecolinc) with guidance from Mark Antos (Parks Victoria)

Flora species profiles; Louise Gilfedder, Adrian Marshall

Bioregion descriptions: Nicholas Williams

Community descriptions: Nicholas Williams utilising information from a variety of sources, particularly the EPBC listing advice.

Grassland community distribution maps were compiled for Land of Sweeping Plains: Managing and Restoring the native grasslands of south-eastern Australia by Caragh Threlfall using data supplied by state conservation departments and the Federal Department of the Environment.

Grassland site descriptions: Nicholas Williams using information generously provided by Rainer Rehwinkel (New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage), Louise Gilfedder, Adrian Shackley, Belinda Rossack (Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning ), Jonathan Tuck (Nature Glenelg), Mark Antos (Parks Victoria), Liz Fenton, Geoff Robertson (Friends of Grasslands), Linda Bradburn (Melton City Council, Amanda Dodd (Hume City Council), Brian Bainbridge (Merri Creek Management Committee)

Grassland site maps were created by Louise Podmore from data supplied by Dave Kendal (ARCUE/University of Melbourne), Michael Mulvaney (ACT Government), Rainer Rehwinkel, Adrian Shackley, the DELWP Biodiversity Atlas and other sources.

Species distribution records were sourced from the Atlas of Living Australia. We thank them and Dave Kendal who wrote the code to facilitate downloading the large data files. We have included all records of the species, not just those from native grasslands, to give users an indication of species ranges and rarity.

Photos have been generously provided by numerous individuals who are acknowledged in their captions. Many photos have been supplied under creative commons licences and are available for downloading, while others are supplied under copyright and cannot be used without permission.We would particualry like to thank Russell Best and Chris Lindorff via Natureshare.org.au and Harry Rose (aka The Macleay grass man) for their fantastic photos and their generosity in making them freely available.

Sound files kindly supplied by David Stewart Nature Sound and donated by Murray Littlejohn.

We also thank the many other people, too many to list here, who assisted with this project.

Contact Us

For additional information, to add species photos or grassland sites to the app, suggest corrections or future content, or to seek permission to use content, please contact:

Associate Prof. Nicholas Williams, The University of Melbourne

Linda Flynn, Director, Ecolinc