The Department of Botany and Plant Biotechnology, together with the African Centre for DNA Barcoding (ACDB), exposed the third-year and Honours students to a practical hands-on excursion to the UJ island to showcase their plant identification skills. The students, accompanied by well-equipped demonstrators, undertook a journey across the Island to identify plant species within systematically established plots. Under the hot sun, students used iNaturalist to identify plants, take records of vegetation type, habitat type, plant heights, signs of disturbance and overall soil type. More importantly, students identified plant morphological features such as leaf arrangements, flower and florescence type. 

Honours students specifically collected community ecology data, assembled a phylogenetic tree for the Island’s flora and analysed all data collected in R to investigate the ecological processes shaping community assemblages on the island. They concluded each day by presenting their findings, demonstrating their strong analytical and presentation skills.