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Topic Grassland ecosystems
Question How do we know if grasslands are ‘healthy’? Can we measure this?
Expert Dr John Morgan
Dr John Morgan is a research scientist in the Department of Botany at La Trobe University, Bundoora. John has worked for many years in the grassy ecosystems of southern Australia, concentrating on understanding the long-term changes that occur in species composition in the context of land-use change, ecological management and plant invasions, relating his findings to conservation and biodiversity.
All grasslands are unhealthy in some respects – they’re invaded by introduced species, so there is no pristine grassland in southern Australia. But a grassland in good condition is diverse and is dominated by native species. A more important question is: are grassland plant species persisting in the long-term, or slowly ‘blinking out’?
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