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Multispecies - Coggle Diagram

- - - - rabbits
      - foxes
    - - The introduction of sheep to Victoria transformed the ecosystem faster than most ecosystems have been transformed anywhere in the history of human occupation.
        
        nutrient depletion
        
        removal of top soils
    - - box iron bark forests #
- - - - Hidden among the grasses of the Volcanic Plains, and surviving in unlikely places along roadsides and in cemeteries, are nearly 100 species of indigenous orchids. This remarkable family of plants, with its specialised reproduction techniques, was well represented in grasslands across a range of habitats. Many of these orchid species have been pushed to the edge of extinction and a few have only survived with the intervention of very dedicated people who have given years of their lives to find, research, nurture and re-introduce them to their shrinking habitats. Orchids cannot grow in isolation - each has evolved in relationship with the complex diversity of its particular habitat. Most, if not all, orchids can only feed and reproduce in a symbiotic relationship with invisible underground fungi. These were once distributed by bandicoots and bettongs. No bandicoots, no orchids. Now the orchids depend on humans to fulfil this need. Bandicoots snuffle around eating truffles and other fungi, spreading them around so they reach a variety of orchids and other plants which depend on fungi to process nutrients for their special needs. The long underground filaments of the fungi access nutrients in the soil, which they exchange for carbohydrates produced by orchids and other plants – a symbiotic relationship. The Sunshine Diuris orchid was once so common in fields around Melbourne it was called ‘snow in the paddock’. Now is virtually extinct in the wild, surviving naturally at a single remaining location.
        
        sunshine duiris
        
        small golden moth orchid
        
        caladenia fulva (box iron bark ecosystems)
      - bandicoots / fungi / bettongs
      - https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/fungal-endophytes-australian-terrestrial-orchids
    - - “Lowland temperate grasslands are the most threatened of Australia’s major temperate ecosystems”
      - . The landscape was dominated by Kangaroo Grass, poa tussocks, wallaby grasses and spear grasses.
  - - - So common that they are almost invisible, lichens are found on the basalt boulders that seem to be strewn from one end of the basalt plains to the other. The size and shape of the stones is a result of rough crystalline fractures that are part of the physical structure of basalt. Lichens, which grow very slowly and live a long time, are basically a symbiotic relationship of an algae and a fungus, and have been around for about 600 million years.
        The algae in the lichen carries out photosynthesis, changing atmospheric carbon into carbon sugars, while the fungus protects the algae, helps retain water and draws minerals from where the lichen sits. Lichens play a role in breaking down the basalt stones by releasing acidic chemicals that very slowly dissolve the rock to release minerals for the plant’s consumption.