TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve Quadrat metadata

In the mid-1920's Professor Theodore George Bentley Osborn, Professor of Botany in the University of Adelaide, put forward strong scientific arguments concerning the lack of knowledge of the ecology of arid zone vegetation, and the effect of grazing on it (Osborn, 1925). A parcel of land of around 390ha was identified and fenced to exclude rabbits and other stock. The area was originally referred to as the Arid Region Flora Reserve but later was named the TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve after its founder. The reserve was to provide the basis for systematic measurements of the now-protected vegetation. Osborn and his team set up a series of quadrats (square plots) and photopoints within the reserve. A series of transects was later added Data are available from 30 quadrats in the TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve (introduced in Specht (2025)), varying in size and duration of measurements. These quadrats range in size from large (100 x100 m), 60 x 80 m, irregular (800m2 - 25m2), intermediate (10 x10 m), to small (1x1m). Most quadrats are inside the reserve but some lie adjacent, outside the fenced area. The publication provides detailed metadata for the data collected at these sites between 1926 and 2014. These data are available through Australia's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Infrastructure's Data Discovery Portal (TDDP ) References Osborn, T.G.B. (1925) On the ecology of the vegetation of arid Australia. No.1. Introduction and general description of the Koonamore Reserve for the study of the saltbush flora. Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Aust. 49: 290‑297. Specht A (2025) TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve: Background to the collection in TERN. Available at https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.15507923