Welcome to this month’s updates from the TERN community. I start by drawing your attention to an excellent soil-related story by ABC that featured Dr Ben Macdonald of CSIRO, who is also the lead for TERN’s Landscapes capability and our ACT Regional Ambassador. Ben was interviewed about Australia’s earliest scientific collections and how they continue to prove their worth. He was discussing the century‑old CSIRO soil archive but the story is a timely reminder that long‑term, well‑curated environmental records such as covered by the ABC and the TERN Australia National Soil and Herbaria Collection are not just historical artefacts, they are national assets, allowing us to understand change, calibrate new technologies and build the evidence base for decisions we will rely on decades from now. This is exactly the ethos that underpins TERN’s work and it is encouraging to see this value recognised so clearly in the national media.
Before turning to this month’s highlights, I want to correct an error in the March Director’s Update. I mistakenly referred to NatureStates, the new name for TERN’s National Ecosystem Assessment System for Australia, as “NatureScapes”. My sincere apologies. NatureStates represents a major national uplift in ecosystem accounting capability, and it is important we refer to it accurately and consistently as we continue to build awareness and engagement.
This month’s newsletter brings together stories that speak to continuity, renewal and the expanding reach of national environmental infrastructure.
We begin by acknowledging the retirement of Professor Jason Beringer, a long‑standing contributor to Australia’s flux community and a foundational member of the TERN network. We thank Jason for his extraordinary service and wish him well for the next chapter.
Our coastal monitoring capability also takes an important step forward this month. With the installation of Tasmania’s first surface elevation table (SET) stations, the OzSET network is now truly national. This expansion fills a critical geographic gap and strengthens our ability to track how Australia’s coastal wetlands are responding to sea‑level rise, sediment dynamics, and climate‑driven change.
We also feature the global release of the new FLUXNET Shuttle dataset, an important milestone for the international flux community. The Shuttle marks a shift from infrequent major releases to a continuously updated, globally harmonised collection of eddy‑covariance data. With more than 700 sites and nearly 6,000 site‑years already available, it offers unprecedented coverage and consistency. TERN is proud to have contributed to the development of this system alongside AmeriFlux, ICOS, ChinaFLUX, NEON, SAEON and others. This new approach will support more robust global synthesis, reduce observational bias, and accelerate scientific discovery.
Finally, we share insights from our April webinar on plant litter, an ecological “master variable” that shapes biodiversity, soil fertility, carbon cycling, hydrology, and fire. From photobleached leaves in the Mallee to millennia‑old peat in alpine bogs, plant litter processes remain one of the most challenging components of ecosystem modelling. The researchers featured in this story are helping to close that gap, improving the foundations for national carbon accounting and future ecosystem projections.
As always, thank you to our contributors, collaborators and the many researchers who continue to build Australia’s environmental evidence base. Happy reading.
Dr Beryl Morris, Director of TERN Australia