Expedition begins

Helicopter landing on the Aurora prior to departing Hobart.

Helicopter landing on the Aurora prior to departing Hobart.

How much has the vegetation changed in the past two years? We’ll soon see.

Finally it’s time to do some field work. The Aurora Australis is loaded up and heading south. In 3 days time we will be at Macquarie Island. The main aim of my fieldwork is to revisit the vegetation monitoring sites which were established at six locations in the early 1980s. We will record the abundance of all the vascular plant species in these plots to determine which are the winners and losers in this new era of rabbit-free ecosystem.

Hope we don't need these...

Hope we don’t need these…

Departing Hobart on a grey autumn afternoon.

Departing Hobart on a grey autumn afternoon.

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