| | Welcome
September is national Biodiversity Month and aims to 'promote the importance of protecting, conserving and improving biodiversity'. To increase our capability in this area, we are pleased to welcome two new post-doctoral research fellows to ARI, who are joint appointments with La Trobe University. Dr Katherine Harrisson (pictured at left, in the lab) will use genomics to estimate the health of native fish populations and their response to environmental water and habitat restoration, while Dr Luke Collins will be addressing climate change, identification of 'refuge' habitat, and the role of fire in shaping forest ecosystems. Fire is one of many factors that have a complex relationship with biodiversity, about which a lot remains unknown. ARI's Andrew Bennett and Sally Kenny were part of the Mallee Fire and Biodiversity team, whose research has made a significant contribution to understanding this relationship. In recognition of this, the study has been awarded the 2016 Nancy Millis Science in Parks Award and was short listed for the 2016 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Environmental Science. Congratulations Andrew, Sally and the whole team!
Our research included in this issue highlight two of DELWPs Threatened Species Protection Initiative projects (on Southern Right Whales and Freshwater Catfish), and a program designed to monitor and assess state-wide environmental water management.
Regards
Dr Kim Lowe
Research Director
Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research
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| | Tracking Southern Right Whales using photo identification
Thousands of images of Southern Right Whales from the south-east Australian coast have been cross-matched with images of whales from south-west Australia to identify individuals using both areas. This has revealed important information about the distribution and movements of whales wintering on the Australian coastline.
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| | Freshwater Catfish: breeding & environmental water
Tahbilk Lagoon near Nagambie is an important refuge for the threatened Freshwater Catfish. ARI studied the timing of breeding to better understand how environmental water releases may affect spawning success. This species builds circular nests in shallow areas, and rapid changes in water level can cause fish to abandon nests.
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| | What does environmental water deliver?
A review and analysis of data collected by the Victorian Environmental Flows Monitoring and Assessment Program (VEFMAP) and other complementary research has been carried out. This work has explored the relationship between environmental water releases and ecological responses of native fish and vegetation.
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PhD Research - Amanda Lilleyman (Charles Darwin University) ARI supervisor: Danny Rogers
Constraints of population size of migratory shorebirds in Darwin Harbour, Northern Territory
Amanda Lilleyman is a PhD student at Charles Darwin University (CDU), and is supervised by ARI’s Danny Rogers, along with Prof Mike Lawes and Prof Stephen Garnett from CDU. Amanda (seen here releasing a radio-tagged Great Knot) is researching migratory shorebird ecology in Darwin Harbour. Migratory shorebirds are highly threatened throughout their distribution, with coastal development and habitat destruction as key threats. The Northern Territory supports thousands of migratory shorebirds and has many sites listed as nationally and internationally important. The aims of this PhD are to examine the factors that constrain population size in migratory shorebirds in Darwin Harbour, including roost availability, prey availability, species assemblage at sites, site connectivity, and metapopulation structure. Amanda has been researching shorebirds in the Darwin region for 5 years and has published some of her work, including this paper with Danny: Lilleyman, A., Garnett, S.T., Rogers, D.I., and Lawes, M.J.(2016) Trends in relative abundance of the Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) in Darwin, Northern Territory, Stilt 68: 25-30
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| | Receive ARI research updates
There are a number of ways that we communicate our research: the ARI eNews, and ARI Seminar email alerts are a couple of examples. Other options include details of recent publications, and summaries of recent project activities: - ARI Publications (3 or 4 updates per year)
- ARI Aquatic Ecology Quarterly update (4 issues per year)
- ARI Terrestrial Ecology Quarterly update (4 issues per year)
If you are interested in receiving any of these updates, or would like to be sent an example, please let us know at research.ari@delwp.vic.gov.au
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Recent journal articles and reports (link to PDF) include:
A recent publication highlight for ARI was an article in the prestigious journal Nature on the findings of a major study on the impact on biodiversity from human-driven disturbances in Amazon rainforest. ARI’s Jim Thomson was part of the team (Barlow et al.) which looked how at multiple disturbances can cause losses similar to those caused by deforestation alone. Barlow, J., Lennox, G.D., Ferreira, J., Berenguer, E., Lees, A.C., Mac Nally, R., Thomson, J.R., et al. (2016) Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation. Nature 535:144-147 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haslem, A., Leonard, S. W.J., Bruce, M. J., Christie, F., Holland, G. J., Kelly, L. T., MacHunter, J., Bennett, A. F., Clarke, M. F. and York, A. (2016) Do multiple fires interact to affect vegetation structure in temperate eucalypt forests? Ecological Applications (online early) Kitchingman, A., Tonkin, Z., Ayres, R.M., Lyon, J., Stout, J.C., Rutherfurd, I.D. and Wilson, P. (2015). Predicting natural instream woody-habitat loads across large river networks. Marine and Freshwater Research (online early) Straka, T. M., Lentini, P. E., Lumsden, L. F., Wintle, B. A. and van der Ree, R. (2016) Urban bat communities are affected by wetland size, quality, and pollution levels. Ecology and Evolution 6:4761–4774 Todd, C.R., Lindenmayer, D.B., Stamation, K., Acevedo-Cattaneo, S., Smith, S. and Lumsden, L.F. (2016) Assessing reserve effectiveness: Application to a threatened species in a dynamic fire prone forest landscape. Ecological Modelling 338:90-100
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ARI Seminar Series
The next ARI seminar is on the 5th September - register for the webinar to watch it online if you can't make it to Heidelberg. Topics in 2016 have included carbon leverls in fire affected forest and wetland restoration. Speakers have included ARI scientists and researchers from international and local universities. To receive ARI seminar series email alerts, including webinar (live online viewing) details and follow-up summaries, email us at research.ari@delwp.vic.gov.au
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Sign up to our eNews
If you know someone who may like to receive the ARI eNews, forward this email on using the 'Share this' option at the top. If this has been forwarded onto you there is an option to sign-up below, or email research.ari@delwp.vic.gov.au to be added to the ARI eNews mailing list.
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| © The State of Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning 2016
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