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What
is Plant-SyNZ™?
Many people, from professional scientists to lay people and school
students, are interested in learning about how to enhance and measure
New Zealand’s biodiversity. Insects are an important and numerous
component of New Zealand’s biodiversity. Crop & Food Research
is developing a tool for assessing the biodiversity of a broad range
of invertebrate (insect and mite) herbivores. The tool, called ‘Plant-SyNZ™’,
is based upon photographs of plant damage caused by the invertebrates
and photographs of invertebrates that have a unique appearance on
a particular plant. The tool can be used for a wide variety of purposes
and by people with different skill levels.
Central to Plant-SyNZ™ are invertebrate identification charts,
which are laminated A4 pages featuring the photographs of plant
damage. An example of a identification chart can be down loaded
as a pdf file. Each of these invertebrate identification charts
covers only one plant species. However, the charts for each plant
species are available for three levels of skill, student, standard
and expert. The charts are accompanied by matching recording sheets.
During the first six months of 2004 Crop & Food Research is
seeking feedback on the identification charts for five plant species
in order to improve their presentation and content.
About the invertebrate identification
charts
The identification charts provide photographs and brief descriptions
of distinctive plant damage and/or invertebrate herbivores that
have a unique appearance on the plant species. The size of the invertebrates
or the galls and mines can be difficult to describe or show on photographs.
It has been indicated by comparison with a part of the plant, such
as a leaf or stem.
The identification charts have been designed for three levels of
expertise. Where special skill is needed to distinguish between
symptoms, such as two kinds of stem gall, these have been assigned
to the ‘expert’ level for trained botanists and entomologists.
Where the symptoms are always clear and distinctive, these have
been assigned to the ‘student’ level. There is a ‘standard’
level for non-experts.
The charts also list other herbivores that are known to be associated
with the plant and sometimes show other kinds of plant damage that
might be seen.
The invertebrates shown in the photographs and in the host list
are those known to the editor at the time. New host associations
are continually being added to the Plant-SyNZ™ database from
a variety of sources, including published information, insect collections,
personal information from entomologists and newly discovered invertebrates.
The charts also provide illustrations and notes to assist identification
of the plant species.
Recording sheets
There is a recording sheet to accompany each
identification chart. These can be copied prior to a survey. If
plots are to be recorded separately, then details of the habitat
can be written on the sheets before copying.
Use of plant and invertebrate names
The invertebrate identification charts give common names and scientific
names. However, common names do not exist for all plant species
and sometimes there are several common names for a species or same
common name is used for more than one plant species, e.g. karamu
for Coprosma robusta and C. lucida. To avoid confusion only the
scientific name of the plant is used on the recording sheets.
Very few invertebrate herbivores have common names and some are
yet to be named. Scientific names or descriptive names are used
on the identification charts and recording sheets. The family and
major groupings of each invertebrate are also given.
How Plant-SyNZ™ can be used
Plant-SyNZ™ can be used to survey an area of native plants.
The survey can be casual or formal. The tool is particularly suitable
for comparing two or more areas or monitoring changes in an area
over time. Full details of how to conduct a survey will be published
at a later date. The following is a brief outline of the procedure.
It is assumed that the group conducting the survey will already
know which plant species are present and will select the plants
(15-30) that they want to use in their survey. They will have the
plant sheets and matching recording forms, also provided by Crop
& Food research. The recording sheets can be copied to produce
the number required for the survey.
Next the surveyors need to decide how many 3 x 10 meter rectangles
(sample plots) they want to examine. This depends on the size of
the area, but 25-30 are currently recommended for each habitat.
The sample plots should be spread throughout the area being monitored,
and preferably chosen using one of the methods of random selection.
White portable electric fence posts are good temporary markers for
the corner of each plot. When marked out, the plot is checked for
the presence of the selected plant species. Plants of each selected
species that is present are then search for a fixed time; up to
2 minutes is generally adequate. One person searches and uses the
Plant-SyNZ™ page to identify the herbivores and a second person
records their presence and times the search. Note that the search
can be stopped while a specimen is checked and then started again.
Each species of invertebrate herbivore is only recorded once in
each sample plot. This is a presence/absence method. Abundance is
expressed as the number of sample plots in which each invertebrate
was found. Alternatively, if a simple species list is required,
each species of invertebrate is recorded only once per habitat.
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