Invasive species are regarded as second only to habitat loss as a threat to birds in Australia, so new web-based tools to help choose replacement plants for fleshy-fruited weeds will be a welcome relief to our feathered friends.

As weeds greatly modify the habitat of birds via contributing to changes in fire regimes and vegetation structure, altering the quantity, quality, and/or seasonal availability of food, and directly ensnaring birds, these web-based tools will be of great use to land managers, restoration practitioners, gardeners, nursery industry personnel and others.

Dr Carl Gosper and Dr Gabrielle Vivian-Smith's Weeds CRC project, 'Selecting weed replacement plants for use by frugivorous birds' produced these tools to help end-users choose replacement plants for fleshy fruited weeds.

The web-based tools include:

* Two replacement plant factsheets for target weeds - one focused on northeast NSW and south-east Qld and the other on Weeds of National Significance.

* A how-to guide for plant selection based on traits such as fruit size and structure, fruit colour and fruiting season.

* Native plant trait databases. These are provided as Excel spreadsheets, suitable for searching, sorting, extracting data etc by end users. There is a database for NSW, SA, Tasmania, Victoria and south-western WA.

More information: www.weeds.crc.org.au/projects/project_3_2_3_1.html