TREND - Transects for Environmental Monitoring and Decision Making - is a component of the Long Term Ecological Research Network, a long-term environmental monitoring program dedicated to recording information on Australian ecosystems and key species. The Long Term Ecological Research Network is a major initiative of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network, a collaboration of scientists and policy experts across Australia dedicated to exploring and understanding Australia’s ecosystems and agricultural systems.

TREND provides a system of data collection across native ecosystems, primary production regions and marine environments. By assessing the impacts of various potential climatic and environmental shifts, TREND will provide an early warning system for changes in South Australia’s diverse environments and a lasting legacy of long-term monitoring, informed policy and proactive response to environmental change.

The TREND program focuses on transects of bushland, farmland and marine environments in South Australia, which follow specific environmental gradients. These overlapping transects range from the relatively high rainfall region of the southern Mt Lofty Ranges to the hotter and drier northern Flinders Ranges, some sites across the Eyre Peninsula, and marine sites within the Spencer Gulf and the Gulf of St Vincent (see transect map). Within the transects, species are being monitored in terms of their distribution, structure, life-cycle, overall health, appearance and genetic variation.

TREND is a dynamic project and will grow over time, continuously collecting new data that will assist managers of natural resources and agricultural systems to incorporate change into their planning. TREND consists of researchers from the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), working in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as well as interested individuals and community groups.

Through embracing the latest technologies to collect data, TREND is encouraging public engagement and participation with its Citizen Science program. For example, at specified sites along the transects, people can collect images (through the use of a specially developed smart phone app) that will be uploaded to the TREND website and used by scientists to look at things like changes in fruiting and flowering of species over time.

By benchmarking new data against data collected 20-30 years ago in the Biological Survey of South Australia, and by comparing current ecosystem variation, TREND will detect indicators of change, thus identifying early warning signals for the future. These early warning signals will then inform government policies about environmental protection, agriculture and adapting to our changing climate.

TREND is part of the national TERN initiative and is funded by a grant from the South Australian Premier’s Science and Research Fund.