The Koonamore Project

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.

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.

David Ladd will be sharing one of his many areas of expertise — his decades of experience monitoring photopoints at KVR ...
09/10/2025

David Ladd will be sharing one of his many areas of expertise — his decades of experience monitoring photopoints at KVR — and talking about why they’re such a valuable tool in a workshop on Sunday! Arid lands can change dramatically from year to year, so it’s important to have methods in place that help us recognise long-term trends, especially since these landscapes operate on timescales beyond a human lifespan. This session will be a great one for anyone working in land management or just keen to learn more.

See below for an example of the dramatic trend in increasing shrub recruitment from 1929 vs 1984 vs 2023!

Thats all from our sneak peak series, we are looking forward to seeing some friendly faces this weekend and celebrating such an important milestone.

Catch a last minute bus ride and ticket here:
https://events.humanitix.com/koonamore-centenary
Secure your bus seat via the organisers email in the link

Join us this Sunday for a guided tour with Jope Facelli, who will be sharing his knowledge on the life of pearl bluebush...
09/10/2025

Join us this Sunday for a guided tour with Jope Facelli, who will be sharing his knowledge on the life of pearl bluebush. Through the permanent quadrats at Koonamore Vegetation Reserve, we’ve learned a lot about this species, particularly its remarkable ability to recover from overgrazing and its resilience to drought. Jope will discuss these insights drawn from over a century of data and research!

See below a pearl bluebush photopoint in 1930 vs 1989, showing the recovery of the same overgrazed individuals.

It’s not too late! There are still a few seats available on the bus from Adelaide to Yunta to celebrate Koonamore’s 100 Year Anniversary this weekend 11th-12th of October!
Please book your ticket through Humanitix below, and send an email to the organiser in the link to secure your seat on the bus!
https://events.humanitix.com/koonamore-centenary

Plants of the Rangelands guided tour of Koonamore Vegetation Reserve is not something you want to miss this Sunday! The ...
08/10/2025

Plants of the Rangelands guided tour of Koonamore Vegetation Reserve is not something you want to miss this Sunday! The brains trust team will include Ryan Hayward, the community landscape officer for the North East Pastoral area who also has an extensive background at the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens. We will also be joined by Peter Watkins long-time ranger at Bimbowrie Conservation Park. The perfect mix of practical local plant knowledge. This is the time to get all your questions answered!

It’s not too late! There are still a few seats available on the bus from Adelaide to Yunta. Please book your ticket through Humanitix below, and send an email to the organiser in the link to secure your seat on the bus!

https://events.humanitix.com/koonamore-centenary

Arid lands expert birder Peter Langdon is running a guided bird tour in the reserve on Sunday! We are so excited to see ...
08/10/2025

Arid lands expert birder Peter Langdon is running a guided bird tour in the reserve on Sunday! We are so excited to see what everyone will find. The University of Adelaide is kindly supplying Nikon binoculars, bird field guides, and the bird list from the area will be available to tick off everything you see. Just a couple weeks ago flock of budgies were sighted in the reserve and we hope you see our resident red-backed king fisher!

Its not too late to attend! There are still seats available on the bus from Adelaide to Yunta to celebrate Koonamore's 100 Year Anniversary this weekend. Please book your ticket below and send an email to the organiser in the link to secure your seat on the bus!

https://events.humanitix.com/koonamore-centenary

We have been working behind the scenes on several exciting tours of the reserve that will be happening this Sunday. One ...
08/10/2025

We have been working behind the scenes on several exciting tours of the reserve that will be happening this Sunday. One of which is a workshop called “Tracing Tracks and Scats” run by Dr Steve Delean. This workshop will be discussing looking for signs of life in the desert and how we have recently been using trail cameras on a project to survey fauna remotely in the reserve. We also have some specimens from the museum so you can get hands on with some of the many critters that are active at night that we find in the area. Please see some sneak peak images from our recent survey in the reserve! We have found some really exciting results!

It’s not too late! There are still a few seats available on the bus from Adelaide to Yunta to celebrate Koonamore’s 100 Year Anniversary this weekend 11th-12th of October!

https://events.humanitix.com/koonamore-centenary

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Koonamore Station
Yunta, SA
5440

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