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July 2024

The New South Wales government has announced a major overhaul of its Biodiversity Conservation Act, with the aim of aligning the laws to national and international goals. There is a particular focus on reforming the biodiversity offset scheme, yet experts warn that gaps still remain, particularly regarding how to reduce or stop land clearing. 

In this article by The Conversation, Professor Hugh Possingham, Professor Carolyn Hogg and Jaana Dielenberg discuss the challenges of reforming biodiversity offsets and the changes promised by the NSW government. Read the article here.

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July 2024

PhD candidate Xu Shi recently published his paper, 'Detour for the inexperienced? Migration count data suggest mostly juvenitle Greater Spotted Eagles appear in coastal peninsulas in China'. "This is an important step forward for raptor migration monitoring in China," he says. "Because China is such a vast country with diverse geographical regions, a single survey can reveal only localized numbers and patterns of raptor migration or bird migration in general. This is the first time that multiple teams have joined together to share and compare data that allowed us to investigate patterns over a large area. We are now moving forward to build a national-wide raptor migration monitoring network that will hopefully achieve more extensive coverage and help us better understand the status and trends of raptor migration in China."

Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avrs.2024.100183

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July 2024

Alexander Hendry, former CBCS Honours student and 2023 graduate, has recently published a paper titled ‘Reducing nest box entrance diameter impacts mammal occupancy’ with his supervisor Professor Salit Kark and CBCS alumni Andrew Rogers. 
During his honours project, Hendry found that the occupation of nest boxes by brushtail possums likely limited their effectiveness for bird conservation. The research team expanded on this initial project and identified that nest boxes with an entrance diameter of 50 mm or less could not be occupied by brushtail possums. “These results show that restrictor plates are a simple, low-cost solution to prevent predatory and competitive brushtail possums from occupying nest boxes intended for other species,” says Hendry. 

However, reducing the entrance diameter to 50 mm did not exclude squirrel gliders, the invasive common myna and European honeybees from occupying nest boxes. “The occupation of nest boxes by these species demonstrates the difficultly in excluding non-target species that are the same size as target species,” says Hendry. “This study is part of the Kark Biodiversity Research Group’s long-term work on interactions between native and invasive birds and mammals and their implications for conservation,” says Kark. The research team recommends that future research on nest boxes in Australia should investigate alternative strategies to exclude non-target species such as entrance extenders and internal restrictor plates, which have been used successfully overseas. 

Read the paper here, and read more about the Kark Group’s work on invasive species here.

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July 2024

In a recent paper, CBCS Honours student Haonan Wei and the translatE project’s Dr Tatsuya Amano and Dr Violeta Berdejo-Espinola investigated the opportunities and challenges for nature documentaries in China.

The team aimed to raise public awareness of conservation issues, by assessing the thematic, geographical and taxonomic coverages of these documentaries. They found that Chinese language nature documentaries provide unique information on biodiversity and ecosystems in China, and play an important role in raising conservation awareness in China and worldwide.

The paper also shows an urgent need to import and create more nature documentaries on under-represented, but critically important, realms/biomes (i.e., freshwater realm and deep-sea biome) and taxa (i.e., invertebrates, plants and fungi) and anthropogenic threats.

Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110522
 

Reference: Wei, H., Berdejo-Espinola, V., Ma, Y., & Amano, T. (2024). Content analysis of nature documentaries in China: Challenges and opportunities to raise public conservation awareness. Biological Conservation, 292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110522

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June 2024

CBCS PhD candidate Kelsey Hannah has recently led a paper with co-author Neil Haddaway, and CBCS supervisors Dr Tatsuya Amano and Professor Richard Fuller, that reveals important findings for improving the quality of ecological research worldwide.

Systematic reviews often overlook non-English literature, but this literature may hold valuable insights. This study of 72 systematic reviews and maps from the journal Environmental Evidence reveals that 44% of articles excluded non-English sources. A survey of authors of the papers reveals a variety of explanations for this exclusion, such as time or resource constraints.

Kelsey and their co-authors propose several solutions to help alleviate the barriers faced by authors in aiming to include non-English language literature, such as diversification of the review team, machine translation and incorporating translation costs into funding applications. Kelsey and their co-authors’ study highlights the need for broader language inclusion in ecological research to reduce bias and enhance evidence quality. This study works to support the translatE project (translatesciences.com), which focuses on the often-overlooked challenge of transcending language barriers in science.

Read the article here: doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1699

Reference Hannah, K., Haddaway, N.R., Fuller, R.A., & Amano, T. (2024). Language inclusion in ecological systematic reviews and maps: barriers and perspectives. Research Synthesis Methods, 2024: 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1699

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May 2024

Dr Lily Bentley, a movement ecologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UQ, recently attended the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) COP14 to share her work on migratory species - which was also featured in Australian Geographic. 

The 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS COP14) took place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from 12 to 17 February 2024. "As a scientist, it was fascinating to see the way that international conservation policies and priorities are discussed and agreed upon, and to consider how we can be strategic in our work to support decision-making in that space," Bentley says. 

"Presenting in a side-event coordinated by Birdlife International on marine flyways was particularly exciting, as in addition to presenting UQ research I was able to meet and speak with delegates from NGOs, UN bodies, and national governments, who want to collaborate to protect migratory species," she says. 

As for her Australian Geographic coverage, Bentley wrote on LinkedIn that she was "absolutely stoked" to have contributed to a magazine which she had "read and collected every edition" of as a child. 

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May 2024

PhD student Chloe Dawson recently presented her talk, 'using a buffer-based approach to make global assessments on mining impacts' at the International Association for Impact Assessment conference in Dublin, Ireland. Her PhD research focuses on understanding where to source energy transition metals for climate change mitigation with reduced impacts on biodiversity. "The conference was a great opportunity to network and engage with the broader industry and academic community. It has already led to several post-conference meetings, and new friends who share a passion for conservation," Dawson says.

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May 2024

Postdoctoral research fellow Violeta Berdejo-Espinola has just published a paper with co-authors Professor Richard Fuller and Associate Professor Renee Zahnow in Nature Cities titled “Well-being from nature exposure depends on socio-environmental contexts in Paraguay”.

Notably, the researchers found that while in wealthier areas of Paraguay people are healthier in greener neighbourhoods, but interestingly, in the poorest communities, having plenty of nature around where a person lives is actually correlated with lower health and wellbeing. "This could be an important finding globally for how we provide and maintain nature spaces in the poorest areas of cities, including in Australia. Very few studies have ever included the very poorest neighbourhoods in a city – research has largely overlooked or excluded those people," says Berdejo-Espinola.

"The lessons are that we need to ensure green spaces in the most socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods are high quality, well maintained, and have low risks of environmental hazards such as flood, fire and pestilence. This is deeply challenging, because there are structural economic forces restricting people’s choices about where to live," she says.

Read the paper here.

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May 2024

CBCSers Dr Lily Bentley and Associate Professor Carissa Klein performed at the Brisbane Comedy Festival last weekend as part of The Future Science Talks Comedy Edition.

Lily Bentley, a movement ecologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UQ, told us “it was an amazing opportunity to chat to the public about conservation, and learn a lot about how to tell an entertaining story along the way!”

ARC Future Fellow and Deputy Director of CBCS, Carissa Klein, also shared a similar sentiment stating “it was a great way to get an important conservation message out to an audience I would not normally reach”.

Congratulations to Lily and Carissa, and thank you so much to our CBCS community who showed up to support the duo.

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September 2023

Professor Martine Maron has led a paper with co-authors Drs Megan Evans and Sophus zu Ermgassen and others in Nature Ecology and Evolution titled “’Nature positive’ must incorporate, not undermine, the mitigation hierarchy”.

The authors argue that for the hot topic of nature positive to succeed as the lodestar for international action on biodiversity conservation, it must build on lessons learned from the application of the mitigation hierarchy – or risk becoming mere greenwash.

Read the paper here, a UQ News story about the research here, and a Conversation piece here.

Image: DaYsO/Unsplash

September 2023

The world-leading work of Dr Tatsuya Amano has featured in an ABC News article about the cost to environmental science with English being the most common language for science publications, and the toll of the impact of language barriers for non-native English speakers.

The article references the paper Tatsuya led that was published in PLOS Biology in July 2023 (“The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science”) and also links to Tatsuya’s ARC-funded project, translatE.

In the paper Tatsuya revealed the profound disadvantages for non-native English speakers in conducting science. In another recent paper Tatsuya showed that important evidence for conservation in biodiversity hotspots is often published in languages other than English, with grave implications for the protection of many species around the world. Read the ABC News article here, and also a Conversation article, and coverage by Nature and Science.

Image of Tatsuya by Mari Amano

September 2023

Dr Christina Zdenek has co-authored a paper with Rob Heinsohn and others in Proceedings of the Royal Society – Biological Sciences titled “Individual preferences for sound tool design in a parrot”.

Most cases of tool manufacture in parrots have been in captivity; in the wild, only palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus) have been observed to use tools regularly. However, these native Queensland birds are unusual because they use tools to enhance their displays rather than for foraging or self-maintenance. Male palm cockatoos, the “Ringo Starrs” of the bird world, make tools that they tap rhythmically against trees during display.

Christina and her authors, in a project that stretched over 10 years, analysed 256 sound tools retrieved from 70 display trees. They found that individual males differed significantly in the design of their drumsticks, including the length, width and mass, but no evidence was found that neighbours copied each other.

Read the paper here, a Research Highlight piece in Nature here that includes a three-minute video, an ABC News piece here and a Guardian Australia article with pics by Christina here.

Image: A male palm cockatoo drumming during a territorial display. Image: CNZedenek

July 2023

Professor Jonathan Rhodes led a paper published in July 2023 in People and Nature along with Professor Martine Maron, Shantala Brisbane and others titled “Performance of habitat offsets for species conservation in dynamic human-modified landscapes”. The authors achieved huge coverage from the media for this work, which focuses on offsets for koalas in the fast-developing south-east Queensland region and a government scheme which allows developers to make financial payments to compensate for environmental consequences.

However, these financial payments made by land developers to offset their impacts on threatened species may fall short. When the availability of offsets is low (i.e., there aren’t many suitable sites available to locate offsets) this risks developer funds being insufficient to cover the cost of the required offsets. With suitable locations to locate offsets becoming increasingly difficult to find, this financial risk is likely to be very real.

The study mapped and modelled development in eight Local Government Areas (LGAs) within the South East Queensland Planning Region, applying ecological data and projecting anticipated development and offset outcomes.

While the researchers propose some solutions, they also call for consideration of immediate changes to the current offset policy.

The story was covered by ABC programs, ABC News across Queensland and other eastern states, InQueensland, 4BC News, numerous metro and regional Channel 10 stations, various print and online newspapers up and down the eastern seaboard, Sky News, in New Zealand in online news stories, and in online science mags Scienmag and ECO Magazine. As of late July, the potential reach of the story was an astounding 110,490,145 unique views, with an advertising value equivalency of $1,022,034.

You can read the paper here, a press release here, a UQ News piece here, and a Conversation article here, listen to an ABC Radio interview with Jonathan here and watch a 10 News video of Jonathan talking about this work here.

Image: Koala habitat being cleared in south-east Queensland. Image: Jonathan Rhodes

July 2023

CBCS PhD candidate Joshua Wilson led a paper published in July 2023 in the Journal of Applied Ecology along with co-authors Dr Tatsuya Amano and Professor Rich Fuller titled “Drone-induced flight initiation distances for shorebirds in mixed-species flocks”.

This research shows the alarming impact of drones on one Critically Endangered shorebird species, the eastern curlew, which became startled and flew off even when drones flew above them at the legal ceiling of 120 metres. This also had a domino effect on nearby less sensitive species, which would nevertheless also become startled in response to the eastern curlews’ reaction.

The authors conducted 240 drone approaches of mixed-species flocks containing roosting non-breeding shorebirds in Moreton Bay, enabling them to estimate the factors influencing disturbance as well as the distance of an approaching drone at which the flock is likely to take flight.

Josh and his co-authors determined the drone-induced flight initiation distance for a total of 12 species of waterbird, including seven shorebirds. They conclude that drone use needs to be carefully regulated to ensure roosting shorebird flocks are not approached within distances that will disturb the most sensitive species and that alternatives to drone surveys should be sought wherever disturbance data for species are unavailable.

Read the paper here, a UQ News piece here, an article in The Conversation here and an ABC News article here.

You can also view a video of a drone approaching shore birds here.

Image: Drones pose a threat to shorebirds. Image: Joshua Wilson

June 2023

Above: A family of long-tailed macaques. HIT1912/Adobe Stock

CBCS PhD candidate Zachary Amir and Dr Matthew Luskin contributed to a paper in June 2023 in Biological Reviews titled “The rise of hyperabundant native generalists threatens both humans and nature”.

In it, the authors use field data including camera trapping from 58 landscapes in Southeast Asia to document the hyperabundance and community dominance of wild pigs and macaques. These disturbance-tolerant species are adapted to forests altered by humans by logging and palm oil plantation farming, and have gregarious social structures and omnivorous diets. They both also reproduce rapidly and have a high tolerance for human proximity.

Population densities were found to be 148% and 87% higher in degraded than intact forests for wild boars and macaques, respectively, and, in landscapes with >60% oil palm coverage, populations were 337% and 447% higher than for landscapes with <1% oil palm coverage, respectively.

These elevated populations can drive numerous cascading impacts on food webs, biodiversity, vegetation structure and people – and also increase the risk of zoonotic disease transfer to humans and domestic animals.

Read the paper here, a UQ News story here, and coverage by Science in its News section here.

Above: A wild boar (Sus Scrofa) foraging in SE Asian forest. Ecological Cascades Lab