The Explorer helps you compare the food resources represented by a planting plan and see their modelled seasonal patterns. It cannot assess every aspect of a site or determine whether a plan will meet cockatoos’ food needs.
What the numbers mean
The mature supply index (FSQ, Forage Supply Quantity) describes relative food-resource quantity in the model. The seasonal supply index (TFS, Temporal Functional Supply) describes that quantity in each of six two-month periods.
These are modelled indices, not measured food mass, food energy, habitat adequacy, habitat quality or numbers of cockatoos supported. Values for different cockatoos remain separate. The six periods are not added into an annual food quantity.
“Per hectare” divides by the physical planting area, counted once. A higher quantified value alone does not demonstrate greater ecological importance.
Looking ahead to healthy vegetation
The Explorer assumes healthy, fully established vegetation at the expected mature foliage cover you enter. Foliage cover means the proportion of the area covered by that plant’s foliage at maturity; it is not a seedling count or planting density.
The results do not predict survival, growth, when maturity will be reached or how a planting will perform in the field.
Reading the seasons
Supported seasonal supply uses food-resource quantities and seasonal timing that can be quantified from the reviewed reference information. Darker shading shows more supported supply relative to that row’s own highest season. Colour does not indicate adequate food supply.
Numbers above the seasonal bars count different recognised plants with positive supported quantified supply in each period, once per plant across planting areas and food-resource functions. Contributions with Unknown yield or unresolved timing are excluded. An uncounted plant may still provide ecological resources.
Bars use each cockatoo’s own scale. Compare the printed values across species. Tied highest periods are retained; uncertain contributions may change the apparent leading season or plants.
When seasonal timing is unresolved
A range such as 0.2344 → 0.7031 starts with supported supply. The second value is a conditional upper bound that allows quantified food resources with unresolved timing to occur in that period.
It is not a likely prediction or a confidence interval. It does not put a ceiling on all ecological supply. Where resource yield is Unknown, that contribution cannot be quantified and is outside both numbers; there is no invented numerical upper bound.
Unknown is different from zero
Unknown means the reviewed information does not currently resolve a value. It is kept separate from a supported zero. A zero quantified subtotal may reflect missing evidence, unresolved timing or no supported supply in that period; it does not establish ecological absence.
Check the uncertainty notes and any input warnings. Wholly unquantified resources are labelled “Not yet quantified”; seasonal quantities use a dash with the same accessible status. Where quantified and unquantified resources occur together, numbers are labelled as quantified subtotals with an additional unresolved contribution. They are not complete food-resource totals.
Different foods have different roles
Functional classes group recorded functions, such as different types of food resource. Membership does not establish substitutability, equivalent nutritional value or interchangeable function.
Resource quantity, seasonal availability, complementary functions and demonstrated ecological importance are different things. Rankings describe only the quantified component; they are not planting recommendations.
A developing body of evidence
The Reference Database is a developing body of reviewed ecological information and is not exhaustive. Relevant food-resource information may already exist in published literature, consultancy reports, government material, field observations, unpublished datasets and other sources that have not yet been incorporated.
As review continues and the database is potentially more widely adopted, opportunities may arise to evaluate additional records, improve seasonal resolution and resolve uncertain relationships. New information requires scientific review before inclusion. Reported records differ in reliability and are not automatically suitable for incorporation.
Reference calibration remains provisional. Yield categories are coarse estimates, not measured food quantities. Seasonal profiles may use flowering, fruiting or retained-resource information as proxies for potential availability; they do not establish actual cockatoo access or use. Some supporting evidence links remain unresolved.
Absence from the database does not demonstrate that a plant lacks value as a black cockatoo food resource.
Recognition is not planting suitability
A plant recognised as a food resource is not necessarily suitable at every location. The directory includes introduced taxa and broad groups as well as named plants. It does not establish local nativeness or appropriate provenance.
The Explorer does not recommend planting species. Consider local suitability and site constraints separately with appropriate expertise.
This simplified Explorer does not perform a complete habitat assessment, assess a baseline or calculate offsets.
