Just a snapshot of the breadth of research taking place within out Hub was presented to a packed house of departmental and other stakeholders in Canberra
last month.
Designed to display the cutting-edge science that can help shape policy and management decisions and protect Australia’s threatened species, the open
session was addressed by 10 of our researchers.
These included:
How many feral cats are there in Australia?
Associate Professor Sarah Legge, Australian National University
Predators and parasites of endangered hollow nesting birds
Professor
Rob Heinsohn, Australian National University
Better offsets for threatened species
Megan Evans, University of Queensland
Malleefowl fox baiting adaptive management experiment
Dr Darren Southwell, University of Melbourne
Bilby monitoring with Martu: bringing together traditional knowledge and conservation science
Dr Anja Skroblin, University of Melbourne
Monitoring reintroductions at Booderee
Dr Natasha Robinson, Australian National University
Environmental Accounts
Professor David Lindenmayer, Australian National University
Improving threatened species translocation outcomes through genetic strategies
Dr Andrew Weeks, University of Melbourne
What value does the community place on threatened species protection?
Professor Dave Pannell, University of Western Australia
National effort towards feral cat control
Richard Faulkner, RMIT University
Red hot red list
Professor Stephen Garnett, Charles Darwin University
Acting Hub Director Brendan Wintle says the Showcase will become an annual event.
“It was extremely well received, and such an opportunity to present our research to such a large group of influential policy makers and conservation
practitioners is invaluable,” Brendan said.
If you missed attending the Hub’s Science for saving species showcase, presentations are now available for viewing online.
Presentations are available via the Hub’s YouTube channel, National Environmental Science Programme TSR Hub, and the TSR Hub website.
Photo: Audience at Saving Species Science showcase, by Susan McNair
Many landscapes in Australia are fire-prone, and increasingly so. Altered fire regimes can have a serious negative impact on threatened plant species and ecological communities. A Threatened Species Recovery Hub project is working to better understand the effects of different fire regimes on threatened flora in order to improve fire management strategies and conservation outcomes.
Almost a quarter of Australia’s possums and gliders are listed as threatened under Australian environmental law, and many more are showing signs of decline. Dr Rochelle Steven from The University of Queensland believes people in the community can do a lot to support conservation, especially in urban areas.
The detection and monitoring of threatened species have been a strong area of research in the National Environmental Science Program and also the two national environmental research programs which preceded it. Hub Director Professor Brendan Wintle takes a look at what we’ve been achieving and why it is so important to the conservation of Australia’s threatened species.
In 2009, the Christmas Island blue-tailed skink and Lister’s gecko were headed for imminent extinction. Parks Australia acted quickly to collect remaining wild individuals in order to establish captive breeding programs on Christmas Island and at Taronga Zoo, Sydney, which have been highly successful. A Threatened Species Recovery Hub project team is working closely with Parks Australia to help secure a future for the two lizards beyond captivity.
The silver-headed antechinus and black-tailed dusky antechinus are carnivorous marsupials found in high-elevation forests in parts of central-eastern and south-eastern Queensland. They were only described in the past six years, but they are already listed as Endangered. Knowing where they occur is essential for effective conservation, but current distribution knowledge is patchy. To address this, PhD candidate Stephane Batista in partnership with the Queensland Herbarium and Queensland Department of Environment and Science is modelling the habitat where these threatened species are likely to occur, and is using detection dogs to rapidly survey these sites.