Our Urban Forest and Natural Areas team and Implementation Working Group members have worked to create a knowledge hub on urban forest, sustainability, biodiversity, caring for our trees, flora and fauna and much more for our residents, community members and visitors to access.
Check out our collated and curated resources below.
Planting Tips with Stephen (aka Bushy)
Our Urban Ecosystems Supervisor, Bushy, shares his tips for your home gardens and planting around the Town this planting season.
Check out his advice for tube stock planting, garden design and weeding on our YouTube channel.
Watch Bushy's playlist
My Tree Story
What is your favourite tree around Town? How can young people get more involved in urban greening? What can we do as community members to help our street trees grow?
Our community members, residents, Aboriginal Elders, and young people share their thoughts and stories on all of this and more through our 'My Tree Story' series. Watch the videos on our YouTube channel.
Watch the My Tree Story playlist
Slime moulds for a healthy, thriving Jirdarup Bushland ecosystem
Over the cold, wet and wintry month of July 2022, the Friends of Jirdarup Bushland spotted some brightly coloured slime moulds, found in leaf litter and old logs on the Bushland floor.
The fact that the Friends were able to “see” these tiny life forms (you would normally need to take back the old, wet log or leaf litter and place it under a microscope) is even more impressive.
Whilst they may be tiny in form, slime moulds have an important role in a thriving ecosystem like the Town’s Jirdarup Bushland. They are the food source – during both stages of its development – for tiny invertebrates such as springtails, beetles and other insects and molluscs, which in turn becomes the food source for larger insects and small vertebrates such as lizards which help aerate the soil, pollinate blossoms, and control insect and plant pests.
Slime moulds are poorly studied in many parts of the southern hemisphere but particularly here in Australia, despite the fact that we have such a large proportion of species.
Hence, the Urban Forest team members were very lucky to have secured an interview with Karina Knight of the WA Herbarium who refers to herself as a citizen scientist but is the driving force for slime mould in our state.
These are some initial insights that Karina provided as a resource for us on slime moulds.
What are slime moulds?
Slime moulds originally were thought to be a type of fungi as they have spores. They were even classified as part of the animal kingdom at one stage. Now they belong informal group known as protists,” said Karina.
“Slime moulds are essentially organisms that live mostly in moist terrestrial habitats and produce a plasmodium that feeds on bacteria, fungi and decayed organic matter.”
“Now for the most part, slime moulds exist in microscopic form but during this plasmodial stage they coalesce to have eye-catching and spore-containing fruiting bodies that can sometimes span up to a metre.”
“In fact, one species, with the common name of dog vomit, is bright yellow and you cannot miss it.”
What role do they play for the Jirdarup Bushland?
“Slime moulds are part of an ecosystem and play a role in the Jirdarup Bushland and anywhere else in the world where there is vegetation, as part of the web of life in this Bushland ecosystem,” explained Karina.
“Slime moulds are part of an ecosystem and play a role in the Jirdarup Bushland and anywhere else in the world where there is vegetation, as part of the web of life in this Bushland ecosystem,” explained Karina.
“They are the food source for small invertebrates in this Bushland that then become the major food source for other insects that cycle nutrients, pollinate plants, disperse seeds, maintain soil structure and fertility, control populations of other organisms, and provide a major food source for other important and more visible fauna.”
An interesting fact that Karina shared is that slime moulds can get ‘smarter’ as they get bigger. They also can move quite fast and able speed up the journey to find food.
What can we do to preserve slime moulds in our bushland ecosystems?
“There is still very little known about slime moulds in Australia, as there is hardly anyone truly dedicated just to collecting and documenting slime moulds,” said Karina.
“Yet there are 250 species recorded in WA out of 1000 species globally and so far two considered currently endemic to just our state, mainly found through the work of citizen scientists.”
“We probably still have a lot to learn about slime moulds, and especially in Australia as they rely on growing on vegetation and of course being an old country with endemic plant species, just here in the Jirdarup Bushland there might be some very unique slime moulds.”
“If you have some spare time and/or would like to learn more, I can recommend getting in touch with the Slime Mold Identification and Appreciation Facebook group to kick-off your learning on the basics such as where to find slime moulds in a Slime Safari event.”
“You can also head to iNaturalists online to record your observations and share your findings for discussions with scientists and other fellow naturalists around the world.”
For more information on slime moulds or to hold a 'Slime Safari' event, email Karina at wamyxophile@gmail.com.
Helpful websites and resources
From identifying pests to caring for our Black Cockatoos, check out these online resources below.
MyPestGuide - Biosecurity Resource
My Weed Watcher
Cockatubes by LandcareJS
Canopy Capture App