Media

July 2024

“The CBCS HDR night at Saint Lucy's was a huge success!” says CBCS representative Harrah Friedlander. “We had new Honours students and visiting HDRs through final research quarter PhD students and PhD pups sharing experiences, pizza, and drinks (no drinks for the dogs, and only a little pizza).”

“It was  fantastic to see "old-hands" at UQ welcoming the newer faces, and even people who have been here awhile but are in different buildings meet each other for the first time. HDRs were excited to share their research ideas and plans, but also we just had fun talking about everything outside of academia as well” says Harrah.

 To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

July 2024

CBCS collaborator Henry Arenas-Castro has led a large multidisciplinary team of scholars, many of whom are members of CBCS, in a new study looking at language barriers in the dissemination of scientific knowledge between diverse language communities.

The research revealed that scientific journals are making minimal efforts to foster a multilingual community of authors and readers.

Henry and his co-authors examined the linguistic policies of 736 journals in biological sciences, gathering information from author guidelines and surveys sent to Editors-in-Chief. The study showed further that society-owned and lower- Impact Factor journals were more likely to have policies that are inclusive for non-native English speakers and to promote the multilingualisation of scientific knowledge. The authors concluded the publication by providing a set of actions that can be implemented by journals and urging publishers and journals to act immediately to overcome language barriers in academic publishing.

Read the paper here.

Reference: Arenas-Castro, H., et al. (2024). Academic publishing requires linguistically inclusive policies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291(2018). https://doi.org/10.1098/ rspb.2023.2840

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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.

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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.

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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. 

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. 

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.

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.

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.

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.

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.

To keep up to date on our latest events, check out our X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.

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