Mosaic Map: NRM funded projects
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Bringing the Spiny Daisy back from the brink
Bringing an extinct plant back to life sounds impossible but that's what happened to a local farmer near Laura, South Australia, who rediscovered one of the world's rarest plants - the Spiny Daisy.
Last sighted in 1910 at Overland Corner, 200 kilometres from where it was found in 1999, the species was presumed extinct.
Funding
Following Paul Slattery's startling find, a recovery effort was launched as part of a $200,000 program funded by the Australian Government and the State Government via the Northern and Yorke Natural Resource Management (NRM) Board.
Activities
Today the Spiny Daisy Recovery Team is working with the SA Department of Environment and Heritage in ongoing site management to remove weeds and snails as well as on cross-pollination trials with populations at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, seed and tissue storage and community awareness activities.
Ecologist and Threatened Flora Officer Anthony Pieck said after Paul Slattery's find an additional three populations were found along roadsides in the Mid-North, bringing the total of known populations to four.
“When scientists from the Department and the SA Museum examined the genetic makeup of the species, they found all plants at each site were either genetically identical or a clone of each other,” Anthony said. “This means there are only four different genotypes of this species, one at each population, and the genetic diversity is extremely low. Such low diversity gives the Spiny Daisy very little potential to adapt if its environment changes.”
Achievements
The program has already seen considerable success, with the area the species occupies increasing at each site and more plants going in at additional locations, such as the Laura Parklands and the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens in Port Augusta.
“The rediscovery and subsequent uncovering of the daisy's clonal nature has raised a number of questions,” Anthony said. “Why has it survived in the mid-north? Are there any other populations left to be discovered in the mid-north, in the State's Riverlands or in western NSW? Why's the species clonal? Why's there no seedling recruitment?”
These and other questions are ones the Spiny Daisy Recovery Team hopes to answer. The team plans to conduct research unlocking some of the mysteries and, with support from the Northern and Yorke NRM Board, will continue work to conserve this critically endangered and intriguing species.
More information
- Anthony Pieck, Threatened Flora ecologist: (08) 8841 3400 or pieck.anthony@saugov.sa.gov.au
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