  We describe a challenging robotics deployment in a complex ecosystem to
monitor a rich plant community. The study site is dominated by dynamic
grassland vegetation and is thus visually ambiguous and liable to drastic
appearance change over the course of a day and especially through the growing
season. This dynamism and complexity in appearance seriously impact the
stability of the robotics platform, as localisation is a foundational part of
that control loop, and so routes must be carefully taught and retaught until
autonomy is robust and repeatable. Our system is demonstrated over a 6-week
period monitoring the response of grass species to experimental climate change
manipulations. We also discuss the applicability of our pipeline to monitor
biodiversity in other complex natural settings.
