The Koonamore Project

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The Koonamore Project This page is about the Long Term Ecological Research site TGB Osborn Vegetation Reserve, established in 1925. They stay in the on site 'Bindy-I' Cottage.

It is managed by The University of Adelaide for research. Please note: There is no public access to the site without prior arrangement. Each year students, volunteers and researchers from Adelaide Uni come to Koonamore for the annual work camp. The reserve is used for scientific research and is not open to the general public. Please see our website for more information: http://biological.adelaide.edu.au/about/fieldwork/koonamore/

History:
In the mid 1920’s Professor TGB Osborn and his colleagues extended their interests in ecology and field physiology of vegetation to the arid zone of South Australia. The resulting long-term vegetation monitoring project at Koonamore is now over 80 years old, making it one of the longest-running monitoring series of its type in the world. The aims were stated by Osborn as:
1. To study the regeneration of natural vegetation, particularly of saltbush and trees in an overgrazed area, when all grazing influences, including those of rabbits, are removed.
2. To study the effect of grazing of known intensity on the process of regeneration.
3. To study the ecology of the area and particularly the autecology of the species that are most valuable economically. The Reserve records now contain a history of the vegetation over 50 years without sheep grazing followed by more than 30 years without significant grazing by either sheep or rabbits. Kangaroos and emus have never been excluded from the Reserve, as they can jump the fence, and their numbers vary with the seasons.

Koonamore Vegetation Reserve is in bloom. High rainfall this year has graced us with beds of Sturt Desert Peas, Koonamor...
25/09/2026

Koonamore Vegetation Reserve is in bloom. High rainfall this year has graced us with beds of Sturt Desert Peas, Koonamore Daisies, and sweet-smelling Sennas in flower this month. We hope you enjoy the views as much as we did!

PhD student Bec Greening has begun the first field campaign for the final chapter of her PhD research. Using custom-buil...
12/08/2026

PhD student Bec Greening has begun the first field campaign for the final chapter of her PhD research. Using custom-built, solar-powered chambers equipped with CO₂ and methane sensors, Bec is investigating how the soil surface and biological soil crusts in arid environments produce and consume greenhouse gases. The system allows measurements to be collected continuously over 40-hour periods before moving to different areas, capturing how gas fluxes vary across the landscape and between seasons.

This work addresses a major gap in our understanding of the contribution of arid soils to global carbon cycling. A particular focus is on seasonal variability, especially during periods when dry soils are rewetted, triggering pulses of microbial activity that can substantially influence carbon and methane fluxes.

During the two-week field campaign, Bec was joined by David and volunteers Betina Bendall and Eva Kessler. While collecting data, the team also had the opportunity to enjoy the green landscape, squeezing in some birdwatching, some film photography by Eva, and even a brave swim by Eva in the very cold lake.

New Honours student Peyton Hampel recently travelled to Koonamore for her project. Leaf samples from the dominant specie...
15/06/2026

New Honours student Peyton Hampel recently travelled to Koonamore for her project. Leaf samples from the dominant species were collected and paired transects inside and outside the reserve were conducted to measure the plant communities with livestock grazing vs inside the reserve. The data will be used to assess if livestock grazing is altering the plant community. The research questions they aim to answer are: What traits dominant plants in the reserve versus livestock grazed communities? And does functional diversity decrease with livestock grazing? The traits that Peyton is measuring include specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, spinescence and nutrient content.

Koonamore has received extensive rainfall over the past couple of months which has turned paddocks green and lush with vegetation! During Peyton's surveys, the iconic Sturt Peas and Koonamore Daisies were observed which are expected to flower over Peyton's next trip. Some of the most common genera observed are Tetragona as well as various Roepera and Ennopogen species. After collating the data, Peyton will be able to determine differences inside vs outside the fence and determine if native species are more prominent with less livestock grazing. Peyton looks forward to another field trip in July to collect more trait data!

Koonamore Reserve is looking super green due to over 300mm of rainfall so far this year! Last week Dr Joe Atkinson and H...
04/06/2026

Koonamore Reserve is looking super green due to over 300mm of rainfall so far this year! Last week Dr Joe Atkinson and Honours Student Peyton along with David, Thomas and Bec travelled to the reserve. While Joe and Peyton worked hard, the rest took some time to enjoy the scenery with some trips to the large lake system 10 km N of the Reserve and the smaller ‘Lignum Swamp’ lake blocking Baratta Rd on Koonamore Station. Around 15 species of water birds (including 6 species of ducks) were observed on the lakes and at night we even found several burrowing frogs (Neobatrachus sudelli). Terrestrial birdlife included flocks of budgies and cockatiels, orange chats, crimson chats, white-fronted chats, white-winged fairy wrens plus many more. There is an abundance of ground cover including many Sturt desert pea plants which will be worth seeing come the end of the year. While rains bring abundance they have also brought some challenges, with erosion on tracks and along the fenceline, and several species of weeds establishing in the reserve. We hope these issues will be a target of a work party later in the year for the newly formed Friends of Koonamore Reserve. We will post future opportunities on this page for anyone to help out and visit the reserve.

Honours student Thomas Brand, with the help of volunteers Fred and Anook, has been out at the Reserve resurveying plants...
01/04/2026

Honours student Thomas Brand, with the help of volunteers Fred and Anook, has been out at the Reserve resurveying plants on Q100 and Q200 as part of his project.

The group worked to relocate and remeasure a subsample of plants using location data collected in 2020. By comparing these two sets of measurements, Thomas aims to better understand and quantify how much error may be present in plant locations recorded during annual working trips.

This project is an important first step in developing model-based methods to track individual plants across years. Developing these approaches will support future projects in accurately assessing how the Reserve's vegetation responds to factors such as climate variation, both across the past 100 years of data and into the future.

222mm of rain in the past two months at Koonamore has transformed the landscape. Last week, Bec made time after a week o...
30/03/2026

222mm of rain in the past two months at Koonamore has transformed the landscape. Last week, Bec made time after a week of field work to check out the smaller ephemeral lake off Baratta rd on Koonamore Station which filled after the recent rains. In a short time period 8 different species of water birds were sighted, including pink-eared ducks, pied stilts, and banded lapwings!

It’s been a busy start to the year, and we would like to finally sincerely thank everyone who was involved in celebratin...
30/03/2026

It’s been a busy start to the year, and we would like to finally sincerely thank everyone who was involved in celebrating 100 years of Koonamore Reserve in October last year.

We were thrilled by the incredible level of interest, engagement, and turnout for the event. It’s especially exciting to see such strong and growing momentum in research activity at the site recently.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the SA Arid Lands Landscape Board for their outstanding efforts in organising such a successful and memorable event, both out at the reserve and at the beautiful Yunta Race Club venue.

09/02/2026

During the December 2025 Work Camp, the Australian Academy of Science filmed a short feature on Bec’s research with help from Dane. A fantastic way to highlight the Reserve and capture some beautiful footage of the landscape - even in a dry year!

BOM predicts superhot this week at KVR. Forecast from Sat 24-Jan-2026 to Fri Jan 30 comes from the Yunta weather station...
23/01/2026

BOM predicts superhot this week at KVR. Forecast from Sat 24-Jan-2026 to Fri Jan 30 comes from the Yunta weather station update 10:45 PM 23-Jan-2026. Our onsite weather station will record how we fare. We try to protect our Bindyi perimeter tree plantings from ferals, but they will be on their own to use all their arid adaptive tricks to stand the heat!

Congratulations to Rebecca Greening on her being presented with the Marilyn Fox Award for best inaugural presentation at...
28/11/2025

Congratulations to Rebecca Greening on her being presented with the Marilyn Fox Award for best inaugural presentation at the recent conference of the Ecological Society of Australia in Adelaide. Bec presented some very exciting results from her PhD project based at Koonamore. Her presentation, "A century without livestock shows soil microbes influence native plant establishment", compared the performance of plants of Acacia aneura (Mulga) grown in soils collected from open spaces and from sites under canopies inside the ungrazed reserve and in the grazed paddock nearby. Further, Rebecca explored how the differences in performance related to biochemical and microbiological properties of the four types of soils.

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Koonamore Station
Yunta, SA
5440

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