TERN Australia Soil and Herbarium Collection

TERN’s field sample library & open access repository contains tens of thousands of soil samples, soil metagenomic samples, plant voucher specimens, plant samples and plant genetic material collected from TERN’s national network of over 850 ecosystem surveillance monitoring sites. The repository is openly available to interested researchers.

Soil samples are held by TERN’s Ecosystem Surveillance platform at the University of Adelaide.

Plant samples collected by TERN are contributed to national, state and regional herbaria across Australia, with many of the samples stored by TERN’s Ecosystem Surveillance platform.

To discuss opportunities to use our soil and plant samples please contact us, or download a specimen loan application form.

What's available?

Updated July 2022

A guide to using our samples

TERN Australia Soil and Herbarium Collection samples are freely available to the Australian and international scientific communities to conduct research. All we ask is that when you use them, and our open access data, you acknowledge NCRIS-enabled TERN.

This simple step lets TERN record that Australia’s research infrastructure is being used to generate important outputs and outcomes, which helps TERN to continue being funded and available to you.

For more information on how to acknowledge TERN and NCRIS in publications and self-report your use of TERN, visit our research publications page

To discuss opportunities to use our plant samples and soil samples please contact us, or download a specimen loan application form.

TERN Australia Soil & Herbarium Collection Brochure