Art Intelligence accelerators (Aia) = Additional/embellishing, creative elements added to Art Intelligences to enhance and accelerate local ecological processes – therefore intended primarily for non-humans. For example, these may add additional benefit or encouragement to certain organisms to be and become, that in turn will further aid forest recovery.

The benefits to the forest of introducing coarse woody debris
Coarse woody debris (like the two-tonne log introduced to the site) is critical to functioning of an ecosystem. In a paddock or on a woodland floor, such grounded timber stabilises soil, reduces erosion, and creates a protected microclimate where small animals can thrive, nutrients collect, and seedlings can gain a foothold protected from grazing and the elements. Hundreds of species of wildlife rely on fallen timber for shelter and food resources, (while standing dead trees often provide hollows that are important nesting sites for wildlife). It can take decades, to centuries to accumulate – especially larger pieces. It has been lost from many ecosystems (such as the artwork site at SERF) globally due to veg clearing, logging, forest regimen and grazing. At the artwork site SERF (Qld) the paddock had been bare for decades, and only an introduction as we have just done would bring back such debris.

Ecology is a charmed science. It provides us with the capability, the acuity, to see beyond the simple veneer of a place or environment and instead perceive another dimension: the convoluted interplay of its components, the depth of its connections, its patterns and processes. To do ecology is exhilarating; it is transformative; it is about becoming something else, about shedding the skin and perspectives that clutter and distort our human-centric myopia; to do ecology is about pricking the delusion of being apart from and above nature. It is the wonder of seeing the world from the perspective of different species. It is about understanding the endless and enduring shifts of time and place, the infinitely variable patterning inherent in the natural world, in the world into which we must fit. Woinarski, J Z (2023) To the future: An ecology of love, hope, and action. Austral Ecology 48: 1705–1712.

Retaining fallen timber in different environments throughout the landscape supports more complex and resilient ecosystems. Removing fallen timber interrupts all of these processes, leading to reduced biodiversity and less resilient ecosystems. It can also have a devastating effect on wildlife. The benefits of coarse woody debris include:

• developing soil by cycling nutrients back into the soil as the timber degrades
• Reducing erosion and stabilising slopes and gullies
• Supporting more productive microclimates and helping retain localised soil moisture through water infiltration and improved thermal conditions.
• Creating a site for re-colonisation by ground cover plants, particularly wind and water dispersed plants, following fire or other disturbance
• Providing shelter, habitat, food resources and foraging grounds for native species, from tiny microbial communities through to birds and mammals. (Fallen timber and dead trees can act as stepping
stones for fauna and provide a substrate and nutrients for invertebrates and fungi).
https://www.sustainablefarms.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Fallen-timber-and-dead-trees-ONLINE_0.pdf

But to do ecology – and especially conservation biology – in this age is also devastating. Our science, our understanding, uniquely sharpen our perspectives, give us a cursed privilege of seeing the cracks, about watching them widen, about feeling grief at the casualties, about knowing that the future will likely be characterized by increasing loss.
Woinarski, J Z (2023) To the future: An ecology of love, hope, and action. Austral Ecology 48: 1705–1712.

Our partners TERN use protocols for measuring coarse woody debris like the log introduced to the site – ie the future site for microbes of all kinds which project collaborator Dr. Eleanor Velasquez  drew my attention towards (and before that Dr. Lebbinck too in this post here).

Typical approaches to restoration involve plant only and plant and animal only approaches – which operate under what the authors call the ‘field of dreams paradigm’ –  i.e. that if you build the habitat they will come! Such attempts often therefore ignore the ‘unseen majority’.
Contos P, Wood JL, Murphy NP, Gibb H. Rewilding with invertebrates and microbes to restore ecosystems: Present trends and future directions. Ecol Evol. 2021;11:7187–7200. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7597.

Here is the way TERN classify the stage of rot of materials.

Coarse woody debris decomposition/
Art Intelligence accelerators (Aia)
The next step is to determine potential Art Intelligence Accelerator processes that will expedite the decay of the log from what TERN would call Class 1 (Recently fallen/structurally intact) to a higher class (e.g. cannot support its own weight/soft to kick).

Fallen tree branches such as ours don’t rot quickly as they’re almost all carbon.  To compost properly, the requisite microbes/fungi need nitrogen, and other trace nutrients. (The ideal ratio of carbon to nitrogen in compost is around 30 to 1.  That’s 30 parts carbon for every 1-part nitrogen.  Wood is naturally around 500 to 1, since it’s almost entirely carbon). Microbes therefore need a lot more nitrogen to break down a stump and so acceleration of the decomposition processes will assist building the soil and health of the re-forestation site.

One approach involves increasing the surface area so it’s more exposed to the elements (e.g. by drilling or slotting the log), while at the same time feeding the bacteria and fungi that will decompose it. Mulching the log also helps hold in moisture and encourages the stump to break down faster.

Key techniques include:

• Drilling holes (or chainsaw slots etc) into the wood helps it retain water – via little pockets that trap rain, moisture, and nutrients – and attract insects who will then chew additional holes, breaking it into smaller pieces that decay faster.  The water caught in those pockets also promotes fungus growth – and given that water helps the  wood rot more effectively, making sure the stump stays consistently moist is important.
• Sprinkling fungus spores or pieces of grown fungus onto the wood collected from fallen logs near the area, ideally from rotting wood of the same type, is also a viable approach. (Many fungi species are generalists  and so any spores applied will likely help).

• 

• Another key approach is covering the wood with sod or peat moss or nearby soil from the existing forest (thereby inoculating the site with microbes) -to keep it moist and its temperature stable. A moisture content of 20 percent is optimal and temperatures of 10 to 32 degrees C promote fungus growth. NB sunlight is not required because fungi do not photosynthesise. In our case this will mean fungal growth is more likely in the cooler months given the forest has yet to really take off.

  

• Adding nutrients is also valuable – i.e. applying a one off small amount of high-nitrogen fertilizer to the ground near the edge of the stump or log to kick-start the fungus growth – e.g. Miracle Grow (or other high nitrogen fertilizer) works well, but is not as concentrated as potassium nitrate. Pure potassium nitrite pellets are pelletized nitrogen fertilizers. Lab-grade potassium nitrate is more natural than a such prepared blends that includes other potential toxins. “Yeast nutrient,” is a food-grade nitrogen that’s used in winemaking (not the same as nutritional yeast, and it can only be purchased online or at specialty winemaking or homebrewing stores) or use other things you have on hand, like natural cultured buttermilk (contains probiotics that will help digest the stump but  much slower than other nitrogen sources), or urine –  by peeing on it regularly. NB the least effective method, is urine doesn’t have nearly as much nitrogen as actual fertilizer. 
• Epsom salt will also encourage rot to some extent – as it is a magnesium salt, and many microbes do require magnesium, at least in low levels.  However it’s not the main limiting nutrient though, and it won’t be nearly as effective as adding Nitrogen.
•  Pouring granulated sugar into the holes and nooks of the wood after one year has passed since the fertilizer application. The sugar provides an additional carbon source for the fungi. Repeat this step every few months until the wood has completely decayed.

References:
https://www.hunker.com/13407080/how-to-speed-up-wood-decay/

https://practicalselfreliance.com/natural-tree-stump-removal/Back to soil (Image https://www.hunker.com/13407080/how-to-speed-up-wood-decay/)

On June 11th 2024, almost a year after the first (winter 2023) plant survey, Dr. David Tucker and Dr. Gab Lebbink undertook the second botanical survey on site – using three established transects that crossed the passive regeneration artwork site, and one end of the newly named wetland artwork site.  The vegetation types had now shifted from a recently mowed winter site back in 2023 (following a dry season and pre-burn) to a now actively regenerating area after extensive rain – which had also long recovered from its winter 2023 burning.

We surveyed the site along the three prior transects – with each of the 5 sites along each transect marked by a ground peg installed in 2023.

An ecologists’ quadrat (1x 1m) was laid at each pegged point (see diagram above) and estimates of ground cover (% ) and lists of species recorded. As before the agreement on the floristic content was negotiated through  a wonderful, gentle dialogue between the two ecologists – a soundtrack I again recorded a part of for use in a future artwork – just as I had used it the artwork Analog Intelligence. Next  a 5x5m square, originating from that quadrat point at each peg was surveyed for tree growth – with species names, counts and heights recorded. These figures therefore gave us an estimate across the entire site of vegetation type, quality and mix.

As a result, the plots were each quite dense and broadly speaking the number of trees had generally grown well (although some had been lost in the 2023 burn, the very wet summer – or possibly were also hidden in the long grasses and forbs).

In due course, the results of the survey will be collated and compared – which will tell us about the practical progression of the project’s science/ecological meta-aims – i.e. to regrow a native forest from a cleared block – whilst allowing the natural intelligence  of the forest and all its constituent species to direct that progress, and with minimal intervention.

Comparative Surveys 

Here is how the site had progressed ny 11/6/24  (or regressed in some cases since the initial survey – which was followed by a burn). There had certainly been some significant changes with some problematic weeds decreased ) e.g. Paspalum urvillei – and at that stage the field still had end of the epic native Fimbristylis spp. crop!

Notes
*1 Awaiting seed head to confirm and id to species. Maybe D. violascens

*2 Was originally Big weed paspalum (2023)

*3 Maybe Ranunculus inundates

*4 Needs further identification

*5 Needs further identification; identified in 2023 as Cynodon dactylon in wetland area

Advanced Artwork Burn Site Soil Sampling Stages:

After our initial forays into the micro-biology of the soils at the artwork site, Dr. Eleanor Velasquez and I returned to A/Prof Carrie Fisher’s lab to delve further into the investigation of the health of pupureocillium bacteria. This lab investigation marked the culminating stages of  A /Prof Hauxwell-led study into the effects of the burning we had done in 2023 – and how it had affected soil bacteria under the burnt areas (the area we were now calling the wet gulley or wetland). This marked the end stages of the 2nd stage of what will now be a long-term study into the effects of burning on particular soil health indicators.

This therefore was  time to really begin to understand  what bacteria morphotypes had been identified and isolated from the soil samples across the site’s 13 transects (a feature which I also added to the loosely representational animation I was creating for ISEA 2024,  as a series of stylised, subsoil ‘pots’ – see screenshot below).

Whilst this visit therefore allowed us to view the outcomes in the flesh, a couple of weeks later we were also able to listen to students present their analysis of the fungal strands that they had being attempting to identify, culture, re-test and analyse from the site – as shown in the following images:

Presenting the Results of the Fungal Analysis

Results of the effects of the burn on the artwork during were subsequently  presented at a student poster session to Faculty staff (with Dr. Eleanor Velasquez and myself present as guests). Dense information was presented via digital posters on large screen TVs in order to communicate outcomes – mostly in a language suited to fellow scientists. These presentations predominantly focussed on the differences between samples at the transects – i.e. whether the fungal activity differed significantly deep inside, towards the edge or on the outer of the transects (running across the artwork burnt gulley site).

Given the number of variables – and the time the survey had been done after the burn (several months) – some student results were arguably less clear cut than perhaps we might have expected – but most showed some indications that the fungal diversity had suffered initially towards the centre of the  burn site – with the assumption that it would return strongly into the future.

A Further Morphotype Workshop

Around that time Eleanor and I were also invited to participate in another ‘microbiology 101’ workshop – which we attended with interest given its hands on possibility and our need to increase our understanding of the processes involved in culturing and analyse. At this lab (led by A/Prof Hauxwell and initiated by Prof Jenn Firn (another prior collaborator from my prior Carbon_Dating project).

During this session we counted professionally pre-prepared morphotypes (a morphotype refers to the ability of certain fungi to switch between different growth forms) from agar plates with isolates  (a specific strain or individual fungal soil organism that has been separated or cultured from its natural environment). This is the sort of class that’s run by the science faculty to first years a taste of biology and ecology.

The session allowed us to investigate a full set of clean, cultured reference specimens from 2 years of sampling at another local site,  plus some fresh soil samples plated out for us. We then did some basic quantitative assessment of morphotypes using a guide provided – which would allow then heat mapping (two-dimensional tables of numbers as shades of colours – a popular plotting technique in biology, used to depict multivariate data) and the derivation of a  Simpsons diversity index (a measure of diversity which takes into account the number of species present, as well as the relative abundance of each species).

Developing a Timelapse of Fungal Growth

One of A/Prof Masters students Edward Bryans, assisted by Genevieve Dickson very kindly agreed to setup a time-lapse for us so we could see the development of these bacteria across time.

Time lapses are a bit of a staple of science shows, but trying to make your own is a totally different thing  as it becomes an ’embodied’ experience. If you watch someone’s else’s – you don’t really know how long it took – but making it yourself, you have the experience of the actual bacteria that you’ve sighted – that can ultimately become compressed into those 30 seconds. You share life with that thing that you’ve been photographing, and by embodying it, it becomes a totally different way of experiencing and understanding the world that more than human is a part of.

Edward and his colleague Genevieve built a simple system in an airflow protected cabinet in their lab using a 35mm camera with protective coverings – so that we could monitor the bacteria in action. The process turned out to be quite a fiddle – with the heat of the lights drying out the fungal plates and restricting growth – so it’s an ongoing project!

This is the first outcome – showing the purpureocillium and a rather more aesthetic contamination yeast moving in unexpectedly! More to come as Edward and Genevieve work out an improved method to get a larger more impressive growth 🙂

During April/May 2024, consistent with SERF’s other monitoring programs, and the need to track progress scientifically on this project, I decided to  initially establish 1-2 trail cameras on site – as phenocams (vegetation change cameras) –  and acoustic monitoring.

Acoustic Monitoring
I determined in consultation with Dr. David Tucker that initially 1 Solar powered BioAcoustic Recorder (Solar BAR) should be deployed near the bottom of the passive plot where it meets the active plot – to record continuous audio data for later analysis – given these devices’ detection radii is quite wide on open pasture (>100m):

The choice of this hardware is consistent with the equipment used by the Australian Acoustic Observatory which Dr. David Tucker is a member of – ensuring he will be able to help identify the call sounds.

Aerial Monitoring
This would be a mixture of input from the QUT REF team who fly 35mm quality cameras – and my own Mavic 2 Zooms. Initial photos were taken on 24/4/24 showing some of the area put aside for the artwork.

Following discussions with the team – notably Gabrielle Lebbink and Eleanor Velasquez – we began to open up a new thread around the possibilities of soil inoculation – that is – finding ways to move material from eco active parts of the existing forest to the new sites.  This investigation is fuelled by/consistent with the need for the design of the artwork work to be of positive net benefit to the ecology of the emerging forest.

Gabrielle supplied some great information about ‘Re-wilding microbial/soil based communities’:

Contos P, Wood JL, Murphy NP, Gibb H. Rewilding with invertebrates and microbes to restore ecosystems: Present trends and future directions. Ecol Evol. 2021;11:7187–7200. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7597. Downloaded y on [02/02/2024].

This article offered us some pointers of how we may be able to enhance soil biodiversity (potentially a part of an art/science process of trslocation of materials from the current forest to teh regeneration zone).  I noted of that paper  ..

Re-wilding of Microbe Communities (Notes, KMA 7/2/24)

Notes from: Contos P, Wood JL, Murphy NP, Gibb H. Rewilding with invertebrates and microbes to restore ecosystems: Present trends and future directions. Ecol Evol. 2021;11:7187–7200. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7597. Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.7597 by National Health and Medical Research Council, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2024].

CONTEXT:
Invertebrates/microbes are key drivers of landscape scale ecosystem functions such as nutrient recycling and carbon sequestration, but many of these may still be functionally absent decades after a restoration process. The aim of any restoration project should actually be to reinstate ecosystem function and reestablishment of self-organising communities; and yet restoration ecologists rarely consider invertebrates and microbes which these make up the vast bulk of biodiversity and may drive key ecosystem recovery processes. Currently there is limited use of this approach in re-wilding projects – and often poor understanding of its importance.

Stepwise restoration  – i.e. a species at a time – is becoming less realistic in a dynamic and rapidly changing world. Typical approaches to restoration involve plant only and plant and animal only approaches – which operate under what the authors call the ‘field of dreams paradigm’ –  i.e. that if you build the habitat they will come! Such attempts often therefore ignore the ‘unseen majority’.

Normally microbial species translocations are done for the benefit of other species (i.e. to encourage back butterflies or for the benefit of a particular plant health)) rather than for themselves per se (e.g. introduced AMF fungi) – without considering whole communities.  Furthermore, in most cases microbes are rarely monitored afterwards anyway. Hence some environments may remain functionally unrecovered 10 or 20 years later. NB The process of microbial re-wilding is more common in soil inoculation studies (soil transplants).

Whole of community microbial (and invertebrate?) rewilding is often practical due to ease of manipulation – e.g. in forest litter invertebrates and microbes (e.g. detritovores) are critical components – (see p7193). Whole of community rewilding typically involves transporting small subsets of whole habitats – normally from a nearby remnant site to a revegetation plot that maybe separated by an ‘inhospitable matrix’ – e.g. a pasture – and may include elements such as soil, dead wood and pond mud.

Its critical to avoid failures which will result in overall net loss of biota in an already stressed environment). The authors therefore suggest considering:

• suitability of renewed habitat to accommodate the microbes: The revegetation site should be ameliorated and receptive (physical and chemical limitations of soil) – and the source site very carefully scanned for invasives and pathogens.
• dispersal limitations of some invertebrates and microbes
• Distance of new site from existing vegetation ideally should not be far
• May work better in cool wet conditions when microbes and invertebrates are active and closer to surface of litter level (n.b. authors outside Australia)

Broadly speaking a project should

• Set restoration goals
• Evaluate the restoration trajectory
• Choose what to re-wild
• Conduct post re-wilding monitoring
• Evaluate success/failures.

See also this great podcast:  https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/life-in-the-soil

These interesting learnings   dovetailed with the research one of the other science academics  (A/Prof Caroline Hauxwell) who is investigating diversity of fungal communities in soil, including Purpureocillium, which is a interesting fungus associated with pasture health and resilience to pests and diseases. She is interested in the impacts of burning on beneficial fungal symbionts (and thus the artwork site is an ideal choice) – something that ties in with her work on management of the pasture mealybug Heliococcus summervillei, which causes ‘pasture dieback’ (research that is co-funded with Meat and Livestock Australia). A/Prof Hauxwell is one of Australia’s foremost experts in this area and her research is extensive and widely recognised.

Dr. Hauxwell had already independently set up an experiment to monitor the artwork areas pre and post burn – so we were all ears to her process! Generously she invited Eleanor and I to join her class and get involved in some of her soil science – we jumped at this opportunity as an interesting creative opening.

To get more of a handle on this work – here are some excerpts from an email that A/Prof Caroline Hauxwell subsequently wrote – as part of a group email  in Feb 2024.

We welcome, Keith Armstrong, who initiated the burn at SERF and who is very interested in this work. Welcome, Keith.

“For most of you the work really starts in week 3 with the field trip to collect soil samples at SERF.

The project work this year is a Deep Dive on Soil Endophytes. We’ll be focusing particularly on Purpureocillium lilacinum. The project builds on sampling that we did before and shortly after a burn site at SERF for capstone last year.

The student data identified changes in Purpureocillium abundance and distribution in the burned area.

We also know from our research that P. lilacinum isolates have significant morphological diversity, but ITS sequencing has shown only 1 sequence/variant. We hope to look a bit more closely at P. lilacinum diversity in this project. All groups will also have access to 3 PCR primers for Sanger sequencing: one to characterise fungi to genus (ITS) and 2 others to take a deep dive on the identity of P. lilacinum morphotypes. For reference see Naimul’s work on Metarhizium. (https://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Islam,_Shah.html) and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.funeco.2022.101179.

Soil Ecologists: The isolation of facultative root endophytes, particularly P. lilacinum, the effects of burning on abundance and diversity, and diversity within P. lilacinum.

Media Types: Development of media for the production of P. lilacinum variants as an inoculum

All students (plus artists and the science team) will take part in soil sampling .. at SERF. This will take soil samples at 5 points along a transect across a strip that was burned last year See picture attached). 2 sample points will be outside the burn, and 3 inside it. All  will plate out their soil samples onto selective media.

For further background of this process see a report of the 2021 lab run by A/Prof Caroline Hauxwell at Woodford

“