–

Will Australia’s biodiversity benefit from the new carbon economy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Or will bio-’perversities’ win the day?

“Cautious optimism” was the conclusion of Professor Corey Bradshaw, Director of Ecological Modelling at the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute. He is lead author of a new paper published in the journal of Biological Conservation which reviewed the likely consequences of a carbon economy on conservation of Australian biodiversity.

“In most circumstances these two very important goals for Australia’s future - greenhouse gas emissions reduction and biodiversity conservation – are not mutually exclusive and could even boost each other,” Professor Bradshaw says.

“There are, however, many potential negative biodiversity outcomes if land management is not done with biodiversity in mind from the outset.”

The paper was contributed to by 30 Australian scientists from different backgrounds. They reviewed six areas where Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative could have the greatest impact on biodiversity: environmental plantings; policies and practices to deal with native regrowth; fire management; agricultural practices; and feral animal control.

“The largest biodiversity ‘bang for our buck’ is likely to come from tree plantings,” says Professor Bradshaw. “But there are some potential and frightening ‘bioperversities’ as well. For example, we need to be careful not to plant just the fastest-growing, simplest and non-native species only to ‘farm’ carbon.

“Carbon plantings will only have real biodiversity value if they comprise appropriate native tree species and provide suitable habitats and resources for valued fauna. Such plantings could however risk severely altering local hydrology and reducing water availability.”

Professor Bradshaw says carefully managing regrowth of once-cleared areas could also produce a large carbon-sequestration and biodiversity benefit simultaneously. And carbon price-based modifications to agriculture that would benefit biodiversity included reductions in tillage frequency, livestock densities and fertiliser use, and retention and regeneration of native shrubs.

“About 60% of Australia is devoted to cropping and grazing, so if we can manage to modify agricultural practices using carbon legislation that also benefits biodiversity, the potential gains are large,” he says.

He urged conservation planners to start taking greenhouse gas abatement values into account when planning optimal biodiversity outcomes.

“In general we are cautiously optimistic that moves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon pricing initiatives can also help conserve our biodiversity – but that, of course, depends on future governments not short-sightedly killing the carbon pricing system,” Professor Bradshaw says.

Many of us might have stumbled twice on the same stone, yet learnt to be wary of future situations of similar risk. Likewise, wild animals can be predisposed to flee when faced with already known predators (or threats in general). The type and magnitude of their evasive response depends on predator distance, speed and body size (1). Regardless, prey need to assess predation risk in a matter of seconds (or even shorter than that), i.e., balancing the benefits and costs of fleeing.

The benefits all boil down to survival, but the costs might include moving away from offspring, loss of access to fresh and abundant food, or spending precious metabolic energy (2). The methods ecologists use to study animal flight behaviour in the wild are rife with nuisances (3), yet they represent a tool for quantifying wildlife stress resulting from a variety of human activities.

Equipped with our modern technological kit (weapons, vehicles, GPS, etc.), humans behave like genuine predators and can trigger the range of flight behaviours displayed by their potential prey. In that context, Emiliano Donadio and Steve Burskirk (4) studied flight behaviour of guanacos (Lama guanicoe) and vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna) in the Argentinean open plains (‘llanos’). They monitored 2 protected areas under weak surveillance and subject to illegal hunting: the Laguna Brava Provincial Reserve and the San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve (treatment = H); and one area free of hunting and only exposed to guided visits with strict entry/exit times: the San Guillermo National Park (treatment = NH). The ecologists did 3 transects per study area. When they encountered a group of camelids, they classified three types of flight behaviour (alert without fleeing, walking away, galloping away), and measured flight time (between vehicle detection and initiation of flight behaviour) and flight distance (between the vehicle and the individuals when initiating flight behaviour).

Percentage of guanaco and vicuña groups showing the strongest evasive response to an approaching vehicle in protected areas exposed to and free of hunting in the Argentinean llanos from Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan and Mendoza provinces (4). The study totaled 540 km (9 transects in winter between 09.00 and 16.00) and used a vehicle running at 20-35 km/h along dirt roads not visited by tourists. The histogram shows that galloping away was 30% more frequent in hunted areas for both species.

In total, they surveyed 234 groups of vicuñas and 65 of guanacos, with conclusive results. Galloping away occurred for 70% of the groups in H and 40% in NH. Median flight time was 1 second in H, and 15 (guanaco) to 27 (vicuña) seconds in NH. Median flight distance also varied between 400 (guanaco) and 1000 (vicuña) metres in H, and stayed at ~300 m in NH. Those trends remained across groups whether or not juveniles were present, and despite the fact that pumas (Puma concolor) – the main natural predator of both ungulates (5, 6) – were more abundant in NH. Other studies report guanaco habituation to traffic and tourists (but exempt of aggression) (7, 8) and responses to predators in tall/dense vegetation and undulating land was weaker than in low/sparse vegetation and flat land (9).

Protected areas work, but only when you put in the effort (10). Donadio and Buskirk (4) provide indirect evidence for weak investment into preventing hunting of South American camelids in well-established protected areas. They postulate that pervasive hunting can displace guanacos and vicuñas to low-quality habitats, and point out that the problem might worsen if the expanding mining industry opens new roads reaching the most remote areas of the llanos.

Salvador Herrando-Pérez

References

1. Stankowich, T. & Blumstein, D. T. (2005). Fear in animals: a meta-analysis and review of risk assessment. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 272: 2627-2634
2. Cooper, W. E., Jr. (2009). Fleeing and hiding under simultaneous risks and costs. Behavioral Ecology, 20: 665-671
3. Dumont, F. et al. (2012). Flight initiation distance and starting distance: biological effect or mathematical artefact? Ethology, 118: 1051-1062
4. Donadio, E. & Buskirk, S. W. (2006). Flight behavior in guanacos and vicunas in areas with and without poaching in western Argentina. Biological Conservation, 127: 139-145
5. Donadio, E. et al. (2010). Evaluating a potentially strong trophic interaction: pumas and wild camelids in protected areas of Argentina. Journal of Zoology, 280: 33-40
6. Zanón-Martínez, J. I. et al. (2012). The ecological role of native and introduced species in the diet of the puma Puma concolor in southern Patagonia. Oryx, 46: 106-111
7. Malo, J. E. et al. (2011). Measuring ungulate tolerance to human with flight distance: a reliable visitor management tool? Biodiversity and Conservation, 20: 3477-3488
8. Marino, A. & Johnson, A. (2012). Behavioural response of free-ranging guanacos (Lama guanicoe) to land-use change: habituation to motorised vehicles in a recently created reserve. Wildlife Research, 39: 503-511
9. Taraborelli, P. et al. (2012). Cooperative vigilance: the guanaco’s (Lama guanicoe) key antipredator mechanism. Behavioural Processes, 91: 82-89
10. Laurance, W. F. et al. (2012). Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas. Nature, 489: 290-294

As such, when asked by a stranger about what I do, I often respond ‘writer’, because perhaps next to maths, I spend most of my time writing. I tend to argue that without good oral and (especially) written communication skills, even the most brilliant scientist is functionally useless to the rest of society.

So being a writer means that focussing on what some would describe as mundane – spelling, grammar, writing style and clarity – is an essential preoccupation. I’ve written about grammatical and style issues before (see here and here), and in the spirit of providing tips to young scientists out there, here’s another suggestion.

Please, please, please use your own voice.

I’m talking about that archaic style of zombie writing that has plagued scientific writing since its inception – the passive voice.

Here are a few examples:

• passive: The analyses were conducted … ; active: We analysed …
• passive: The data were collected in accordance … ; active: We collected the data according to …

Some might think the differences are somewhat irrelevant, or even that the passive voice sounds somehow more ‘sciencey’ (technical). In fact, on the popular Science Writing blog, Melody Tang states exactly this:

“In science writing, we need to write form object angle to explain science to others. Passive voice is helpful in constructing objective atmosphere of articles. As a result, in some condition of science writing passive voice is undoubted much better than active voice.“

To me, that justification is utter nonsense and exactly WHY you shouldn’t use the passive voice. Using meaningless or subjective words like ‘significant’ or ‘conduct’ or ‘perform’ just because they sound more technical (i.e., so people will think you’re a lot cleverer than you really are) is bullshit, and using the clumsy, archaic and longer passive voice form for the same reason is deceptive at worst, annoying and unnecessary at best. I’ve even had a collaborator state quite assuredly that “you won’t get published in a British journal if you use the active voice”. What journals would those be? I’ve never had this experience, nor have I ever been rejected by using the active voice.

These deception and clarity issues aside, I’ve never understand why a scientist, who has sweated blood and shed tears to collect, analyse and present her or his hard-earned data, would then not want to take credit for that effort? Why apply the passive voice to hide your identity? Who are these mysterious scientific automatons who collect and analyse our data for us? “The data were collected …” – please! Take credit for your work and use the active voice.

I’ll concede one exception to the near-universal need for active voice – if you use, for example, data that you did not collect, then I suppose it’s ok from time to time (i.e., infrequently) to use the passive voice. However, one could argue that you can use the active voice as long as you identify the person(s) responsible.

CJA Bradshaw

Filed under: science, science communication, scientific publishing, scientific writing Tagged: active voice, Communication, grammar, passive voice, scientific writing, writing ]]> http://conservationbytes.com/2013/05/06/take-credit-for-your-work/feed/ 11 -34.917731 138.603034 -34.917731 138.603034 CJAB passive voice ninja http://conservationbytes.com/2013/04/29/seven-signs-your-country-has-an-environmental-problem/ http://conservationbytes.com/2013/04/29/seven-signs-your-country-has-an-environmental-problem/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:51:18 +0000 CJAB http://conservationbytes.com/?p=8866 ]]>

1. It’s almost always hazy – and not just in the cities. The particulate matter pollution makes even sunny days appear like it’s about to rain. To add insult to injury, almost every advertisement with anything to do with ‘outside’ pictures a pristinely blue sky and copious sunshine, without the hint of grey. When stepping off the aeroplane, the distinct taste of tar hits the back of your throat.

2. You can’t drink the water from the tap – not anywhere. In fact, you can’t even brush your teeth with it or risk getting some nasty intestinal parasite.

3. You can’t plant trees fast enough because the frequency of landslips kills hundreds of people yearly.

4. While catching a taxi from the airport, the driver plays a continuous loop of birds singing, because most residents never hear those sounds.

5. You have an economy in over-drive, and yet you still think of yourself as ‘developing’.

6. Emerging infectious disease jumping from livestock to humans is now a near-regular occurrence, with new and weird diseases that threaten to become human pandemics and mutating with alarming speed popping up everywhere.

7. Your over-population is so bad that you’ve implemented a nation-wide policy (operating already for decades) that has limited the number of children a couple can legally bring into the world.

Any guesses where I’ve been this last week? Admittedly, the first four could have placed me in any number of places, but the last one is a dead give-away – I’m currently in China.

A ‘good day’ for Shanghai’s air pollution.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not writing this post to bag the country or people that have hosted me so graciously this past week. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have been invited to the prestigious Fudan and Sun Yat-sen Universities (in Shanghai and Guangzhou, respectively) on a rather generous Fudan-sponsored fellowship. Working firstly with Professor Shurong Zhou and her wonderful lab at Fudan, I’ve had a great week of science (some of which we’ve already published), food and conversation (if not halted at times – my Mandarin is shockingly bad). Today I’ve just arrived in Guangzhou to spend the last few days of my journey with Fangliang He at Sun Yat-sen (see also a previous post about my last trip here).

My wonderful hosts aside, I’m writing this post as a reminder to countries that aspire to emulate the Chinese experiment – you don’t want to go there. If you haven’t been to China, you might not really get what I mean – but if you’ve seen the classic film ‘Bladerunner’, you might get an inkling of what to expect if our governments (elected by us) don’t fully embrace clean technologies and implement long-term plans to limit population growth.

To China’s credit, they have realised at least some of their past errors and are doing rather a lot to reduce air pollution via the mass construction of nuclear power plants and renewable energy sources, they are now planting trees by the millions (although someone should tell them to talk to an ecologist now and then), and of course, they’ve been remarkably successful, if not questionably moral, about limiting human population growth.

But China is a massive, 1.3 billion-strong reminder of what we don’t want to become.

CJA Bradshaw

–

The title is not a joke about sensitive, New Age guys. I am quite serious about it. Though no academic superstar, I have been publishing in ecological and conservation journals for almost twenty years. I love the discipline. I’d hate to see it fail.

What I am talking about is this: ecologists read and write about ‘extinction’, ‘over-exploitation’, ‘climate change’ and so forth as a matter of routine. Yet at the same time, science journals are full of examples of how resources can be used more sustainably, of human behaviours that reduce the greenhouse gases that alter the climate and acidify the oceans, and of alternative economic models that value a healthy biosphere. So why do consumer apathy and political inertia still run the same old show?

I know, I know. Social scientists are working hard on this question (check out, for instance, just about any issue of Nature Climate Change). But what matters is not the rigorous answer that they might produce (we already know that it is 42 - Douglas Adams couldn’t be wrong); it is instead that most non-scientists probably don’t even care about the question.

So let me rephrase my title. If enough of the science needed to transition from the current economic system to one that values the atmosphere and ecosystems that sustain humanity already exists, ‘what would it take to generate the critical mass required for change?’ One can argue that we can always use more science, and I don’t disagree. But will more straight science change minds?

Dwelling on that question, I’ve come to believe that scientists are failing to influence a shift in the world because most of us live mainly in our heads. We usually appeal to other people’s intellect, which is a sure way to disengage most non-scientists. At the same time, we cannot take science out of the picture; we would risk having only beliefs, and these could be dismissed all too easily. Shifting society in any meaningful way, therefore, might require science and more. Science and emotion. Science and connection to the essence of the Earth.

Now that I have given you my version, let me be perfectly clear. The science that scientists do is exactly that. Where I believe that there is a lot more wiggle-room to go beyond science is in the human context that we might create when communicating the bigger picture to non-scientists. Of course, I am not the first to say this (see, for instance, Don’t Be Such A Scientist, by Randy Olson). And I invite the ConservationBytes.com community to expand on this discussion.

Oh, one more thing. I recently went out on a limb and initiated my own ‘science and emotion’ project. I invite you to check it out here. This is a work in progress, so it would be great if you can drop me a line and tell me what you think.

Alejandro Frid

(see also Alejandro’s previous posts on CB.com: Who’s responsible for climate change? Not ecologists, right? and Conservation value of paddy wagon currency: civil disobedience by scientists)

–

The Monarto Restoration Project will provide an internationally recognised opportunity to experience and engage with wild Australia as it was.

Our aim is restore and expand habitats at Monarto to represent what used to exist in the region before clearing for agriculture and the introduction of pest species. Monarto used to be teeming with wildlife. The remnant vegetation at Monarto is unique as it is located at the cross-over of two vegetation communities (the Mt Lofty Ranges and Murray Mallee). This means it provides important habitat for a range of threatened bird and plant species. However, there are still a number of species in danger of being lost from the area, so we need to focus on restoring habitat to support them too.

We provide an opportunity to see the bush in a way that is no longer possible in most parts of Australia. We hope to help you see what we have lost and encourage you to participate in conservation. It gives us the opportunity to include everyone in on-ground conservation work and pass on skills that can be applied beyond a day or this project. With your help we can reduce the impacts of pest species on the property and re-introduce some of the native species that are now locally extinct.

How you can help

The Monarto Restoration Project provides a great way to get involved in on-ground conservation work, and build skills and experience in conservation.

Opportunities this year include:

• The University of Adelaide and The University of Queensland Australian Research Council Grant (ARC) Linkage Project – designed to investigate the cost-benefit trade-off between biodiversity and carbon sequestration, i.e. what gives most “bang for your buck”. The project will commence surveys week beginning 15 April and we need your help! Opportunities include vegetation surveys, pitfall (reptile) traps, invertebrate traps, bee surveys.
• Planting – this year we have some 50,000 plants to put in the ground over 55 ha spread over multiple sites. Holes are predrilled so all you need to is bring some gloves, de-tube a plant, and drop it in a hole! Too easy. We’ll even let nature do the watering.

Equipment for tasks is supplied. You will need to wear suitable outdoor work clothes including a hat and sensible footwear. Bring your lunch, snacks and plenty of water to drink.

Please nominate a date range to assist with our planning and to allow us to coordinate groups:

• 20-24 May
• 27-31 May
• 3-7 June
• 10-14 June

More information about the Monarto Restoration Project can be found here. You can also access the PDF flyer for the volunteer call here.

–

1. R: If you haven’t yet loaded the open-source R programming language on your machine, do it now. It is the single-most-useful bit of statistical and programming software available to anyone anywhere in the sciences. Don’t worry if you’re not a fully fledged programmer – there are now enough people using and developing sophisticated ‘libraries’ (packages of functions) that there’s pretty much an application for everything these days. We tend to use R to the exclusion of almost any other statistical software because it makes you learn the technique rather than just blindly pressing the ‘go’ button. You could also stop right here – with R, you can do pretty much everything else that the software listed below does; however, you have to be an exceedingly clever programmer and have a lot of spare time. R can also sometimes get bogged down with too much filled RAM, in which case other, compiled languages such as PYTHON and C# are useful.

2. VORTEX/OUTBREAK/META-MODEL MANAGER, etc.: This suite of individual-based projection software was designed by Bob Lacy & Phil Miller initially to determine the viability of small (usually captive) populations. The original VORTEX has grown into a multi-purpose, powerful and sophisticated population viability analysis package that now links to its cousin applications like OUTBREAK (the only off-the-shelf epidemiological software in existence) via the ‘command centre’ META-MODEL MANAGER (see an examples here and here from our lab). There are other add-ons that make almost any population projection and hindcasting application possible. And it’s all free! (warning: currently unavailable for Mac, although I’ve been pestering Bob to do a Mac version).

3. RAMAS: RAMAS is the go-to application for spatial population modelling. Developed by the extremely clever Resit Akçakaya, this is one of the only tools that incorporates spatial meta-population aspects with formal, cohort-based demographic models. It’s also very useful in a climate-change context when you have projections of changing habitat suitability as the base layer onto which meta-population dynamics can be modelled. It’s not free, but it’s worth purchasing.

4. MARXAN: No list of conservation software tools would be complete without MARXAN (and the Huge Possum would be more than a little perturbed if I didn’t include it here). If conservation planning and reserve design are your interests, look no further than this clever bit of software, with full GIS capability.

5. InVEST: This is a family of tools to map and value the goods and services from nature, enabling decision-makers to assess the tradeoffs associated with alternative choices and to identify areas where investment in natural capital can enhance human development and conservation.

6. ARC/GIS: Speaking of things spatial, if you need good GIS capability, you’ll probably need to splash out for the (rather heftily priced) ARC/GIS package. I’m not a big fan of the corporate aspects of this monster, but it’s arguably the most powerful GIS around. I have yet to find a decent open-source GIS package for PC or Mac.

7. BIOMOD: While we tend to do species distribution modelling from scratch in packages like R, those with less experience will probably need something like open-source BIOMOD. The software is specifically designed for ensemble forecasting of species distributions (combining outputs from many different models), and is implemented in R.

8. MAGICC/SCENGEN: This, the ‘Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change/A Regional Climate SCENario GENerator’ is a powerful global circulation model (GCM) emulator developed by Tom Wigley (now part of our lab). If you’re doing any regional climate change projections, you’ll need this.

9. ECOPATH with ECOSIM: This powerful trio (it includes ECOSPACE) of applications models trophic linkages and than simulates how perturbations cascade through communities. With ECOSPACE, you can even simulate the effects of virtual reserves on the dynamics of community composition.

10. WINBUGS: If Bayesian inference is your thing, than WINBUGS is useful. A powerful (and free) Bayesian statistical software, you can also call it from R using R2WINBUGS.

11. MARK: I wouldn’t have got very far without this software – the bee’s knees of capture-mark-recapture parameter estimation. Developed by Gary White and Ken Burnham years ago, it has every possible mark-recapture model variant under the sun now included. If you need to estimate survival, capture, emigration, immigration, etc. with marked individuals, you need to master MARK.

Like I said, this list is not complete. I’m sure many of you have your favourite packages, so if you have other suggestions for this list, please add them below and include an URL for software download.

CJA Bradshaw

A tough little Eucalyptus porosa – one day soon this entire ex-paddock will be filled with carbon-guzzling natives. Note the plot markers in the background.

I had a great morning today checking out the progress of our carbon-biodiversity planting experiment out at Monarto Zoo. What a fantastic effort! Briony Horner and her team have made some amazing progress.

If you haven’t read about what we’re up to, here’s a brief re-cap:

Late last year we were awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project grant in which we proposed to examine experimentally the cost-benefit trade-off between biodiversity and carbon using a replicated planting regime. The approach is quite simple, but it will take many years to pay off. What we are asking is: how many different species and in what densities are required to restore a native woodland from an over-grazed paddock that provide the biggest long-term biodiversity and carbon benefits simultaneously for the lowest costs?

Our basic approach is to apply a few biodiversity (native monoculture, medium diversity, high diversity) and planting density treatments (low and high spacing) to plots within blocks repeated across a landscape. We want to test whether the time-consuming and expensive high-density, high-diversity plots end up sequestering more carbon and housing more species once the forest has matured then the other treatments. However, if we can get away with (i.e., end up with the similar carbon sequestration and biodiversity) lower tree densities when planting, and fewer species planted, then our costs will go down.

Digging the pitfall traps

The soil-core drilling rig

Briony invited me out this morning to see the progress, and I was blown away! To date we have slashed the grass & weeds, set up and marked out the 80 25 × 25 m experimental plots in 10 blocks, begun digging the reptile pitfall traps, plotted out the bee & invertebrate trapping grids, and taken initial soil cores for carbon analysis. A few photos are included here to demonstrate.

Next week, co-investigator Margie Mayfield is coming down from UQ to help with the baseline biodiversity monitoring. In May, the entire site will be burnt and treated with herbicide to kill the weeds, and then planting begins in June! I can’t wait to see all the plants in the ground.

Freshly dug soil cores for carbon analysis

What was merely an idea only 6 months ago is turning into a fully fledged, 20-ha experiment thanks to Briony and her amazing project management.

Many thanks as well to the ARC, Zoos South Australia, David Chittleborough and his soil team, the South Australia Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR) and the Australian Flora Foundation for co-investment.

CJA Bradshaw

Briony and her babies ready for planting

© Beboy-Fotolia

Today we announced a HEAP of positions in our Global Ecology Lab for hot-shot, up-and-coming ecologists. If you think you’ve got what it takes, I encourage you to apply. The positions are all financed by the Australian Research Council from grants that Barry Brook, Phill Cassey, Damien Fordham and I have all been awarded in the last few years. We decided to do a bulk advertisement so that we maximise the opportunity for good science talent out there.

We’re looking for bright, mathematically adept people in palaeo-ecology, wildlife population modelling, disease modelling, climate change modelling and species distribution modelling.

The positions are self explanatory, but if you want more information, just follow the links and contacts given below. For my own selfish interests, I provide a little more detail for two of the positions for which I’m directly responsible – but please have a look at the lot.

Good luck!

CJA Bradshaw

–

Job Reference Number: 17986 & 17987

The world-leading Global Ecology Group within the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences currently has multiple academic opportunities. For these two positions, we are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate and a Research Associate to work in palaeo-ecological modelling.

The School of Earth and Environmental Sciences is one of five Schools within the Faculty of Sciences, employing a diverse range of academic and research staff including aquatic and terrestrial ecologists, evolutionary biologists, geologists and landscape scientists. The School plays a key role within the research programs of The Environment Institute and a number of external partner organisations.

The University of Adelaide is a member of the Group of Eight, a coalition of leading, research-intensive Australian universities, and is recognised as one of the top Universities in the world based on various rankings.

The successful candidates will work within the palaeo-ecological theme of the Global Ecology Lab funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project entitled Generalised methods for testing extinction dynamics across geological, near and modern time scales.

Despite the fossil record being patchy and incomplete, there is a general consensus that it is adequate to record major evolutionary patterns; however, poor data quality, geochronological dating uncertainties and preservation biases mean that the timing, drivers and aftermath of extinction events are still hotly contested. The successful applicants will assist us in addressing these problems by (i) developing state-of-the-art analytical tools to both modern, near- and deep-time datasets of species abundance to (ii) provide rigorous and precise estimates of extinction times and speciation events. These results will provide new insights into extinction dynamics, conservation biology, ecological patterns, and policies to reduce species loss in Australia and worldwide.

The successful applicants will be expected to focus on developing mathematical models in the following themes:

1. Novel quantitative methods to estimate the timing of extinctions for species for which we have detailed fossil and/or ancient genetic information (i.e., dated events in time series) across geological periods.
2. Additive and synergistic role of climate variation in prehistoric extinction dynamics.
3. Mathematical approaches to determine the contribution of sampling bias in species with geological ‘gaps’ in their fossil record.
4. Novel mathematical approaches (e.g., simulation, sensitivity analysis, validation) to correct for the well-established ‘Signor-Lipps’ effect in deep-time fossil series (last and first records of a species’ presence cannot be known due to the low and highly variable chance of fossilisation (and later discovery).
5. Finer-scale dynamics of extinction and recovery of populations using new mathematical approaches to scrutinise modern species’ abundance time series for ‘signals’ (patterns) reflecting past (unrecorded) declines.

Ref 17986 will focus primarily on the mathematical model development for Themes 1-4, while Ref 17987 will collate the datasets and develop the models applied to modern abundance time series (Theme 5).

Position Requirements

You should have:

• A commitment to research excellence
• Well-developed research skills, demonstrated by publications in leading scientific journals and conferences
• Proficiency in computational and analytical programming, including demonstrated ability in quantitative ecology, environmental and/or climate modelling, and development of computational methods relevant to time series analysis
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively as a member of a research team as well as conducting independent research and undertake project leadership
• Good verbal and written communication skills and interpersonal skills, including a willingness to supervise students within the lab and engage with external research partners.

In addition to the above, to be considered for the Postdoctoral Research position you will have:

• A PhD or equivalent degree (or thesis submitted) in a discipline relevant to global change biology or ecological modelling, or comparable relevant experience.
• In addition to the above, to be considered for the Research Associate position you will have:
• A BSc with Honours degree (or equivalent) in a discipline relevant to global change biology or ecological modelling, or comparable relevant experience.

–

Postdoctoral Fellow (Level A) #17988: Wildlife Population Modelling

This fixed term position is available immediately for a period of 3 years and will lead the statistical analysis of existing rabbit demographic and range dynamics data sets and build spatial models to assess the suitability of various rabbit control options (in their exotic range) and conservation measures (across their endemic range) in the near and long-term future at local and regional scales.

Salary: (Level A, Step 6-8) $74 001 – $79 435 per annum

–

Postdoctoral Fellow (Level A) #17989: Disease Modelling

This fixed term position is available immediately for a period of 2 years and will lead the statistical analysis of existing rabbit disease data sets and build epidemiological models that account for environmental variation and how disease dynamics may respond to climate change.

Salary: (Level A, Step 6-8) $74 001 – $79 435 per annum

–

Research Associate (Level A) #17990: Data Management and Analysis

This fixed term position is available immediately for a period of 18 months and will carry out extensive literature reviews to establish key drivers of rabbit disease and demographic rates, prepare spatial data for models and ensure effective knowledge transfer between research staff.

Salary: (Level A, Step 1-3) $58,534 – $65,221 per annum

–

Postdoctoral Fellow (Level A) #17992: Climate Change and Range Dynamics

This fixed term position is available immediately for a period of 2 years and will lead the development of models that integrate bioclimatic envelopes, ecological dynamics and genetic traits, to better inform habitat restoration under global change.

Salary: (Level A, Step 6-8) $74 001 – $79 435 per annum

–

Research Associate (Level A) #17991: Ecological Data Analysis

This fixed term position is available immediately for a period of 2 years and will lay the groundwork for the case studies, organising data sharing with collaborating researchers and Government/NGO agencies, undertaking quality controlled data entry, GIS and species database management, querying and archiving, assisting with model parameterisations, and preparation of publications.

Salary: (Level A, Step 1-3): $58,534 – $65,221 per annum

–

Programmer (Contract): C#/Python Script Programmer

Expressions of interest from consultants are sought to undertake a 2 year contract to develop code for fast model execution, assist the other researchers in interlinking different software modules, write user-friendly front-end interfaces, and translate and optimize the new demographic-genetic climate algorithms developed by the other project researchers into high-performance code in C#, Delphi, Python or a related language.

Salary: Ongoing project-based contract services, rate by negotiation

Inbreeding, system shocks caused by fire or cyclones (for example), or demographic stochasticity (by which two or more outcomes are possible) such as how many males and females will be born in a single year, are all factors that threaten the persistence of small and fragmented populations. They can, however, be reverted by conservation actions.

–

If you have ever taken dancing classes, you will be familiar with the scarcity of male partners and how this can jeopardize group learning. When reproduction, rather than salsa pirouettes, is at stake, a biased sex ratio can compromise the persistence of species. For instance, when females are unable to find males (or vice versa), fertility rates can collapse as a result – a well-known cause of an Allee effect (1). Curiously, natural selection can promote such bias by favouring a species’ investment in litters dominated by one of the two genders. The evolutionary formulation of such scenario is that females can adjust the sex ratio of their offspring depending on the amount of available resources (2) – see contrasting cross-taxa studies on this subject (3-5). Thus, when resources abound (e.g., food), mothers can afford the offspring’s gender requiring more resources to reach adulthood or once adulthood is reached, is less likely to reproduce successfully (6). This predisposition to one gender or another can be key to the conservation of endangered species (7).

The kakapo case

At the end of the 1990s, the New Zealand Department of Conservation placed dispensers of supplementary food in the territories of some kakapo (a rather enormous, flightless parrot Strigops habroptilus) to encourage their reproduction. Back then, only 60 individuals were left of the entire species . Unfortunately, those females with access to the supplemental food conceived 67% of male chicks (so exacerbating the fact that kakapo populations are naturally male-biased), while those females without extra feeding had 71% of female chicks (8). Something wasn’t working.

Sex ratios of kakapo chicks from mothers having access to ad libitum and restricted supplementary feeding on the islands of Codfish, Little Barrier, Maud and Pearl. Ratios >1 indicate predominance of male chicks, and <1 of female chicks (parity = 1, grey lines). To the left, the blue bars show sex ratios for adult females fed with an ad libitum supplement and females with no extra food, according to Clout et al. (8). To the right, red bars show sex ratios in clutches laid by females (< 1.5 kg at the end of winter) fed with an ad libitum supplement and females (>1.5 kg) with restricted supplementary food, according to Robertson et al. (10). Clearly, near parity resulted from diets adjusted to female body condition prior to mating.

Assuming that diet regimes could alter sex ratios, and knowing that kakapo mums in excess of 1.5 kg often reproduced successfully (9), Bruce Robertson et al. (10) designed a field experiment to modify the body condition of females. From the end of the Austral winter (June 2001) to the start of reproduction (January 2002), the Kiwi team supplied ad libitum food in the territories of 8 females weighing less than 1.5 kg, and restricted supplementary feeding to 6 females over 1.5 kg. Following mating, all females were provided with ad libitum food, and their chicks were sexed. In a nutshell, the experiment showed that the 14 females monitored reached 1.8 kg at the end of winter and managed to lay a total of 15 clutches. This was during a good year for the species as a whole, with 67 eggs layed of which 26 chicks hatched and 24 fledged. The excellent news was that male:female ratios neared parity in both feeding treatments, namely 9:10 (ad libitum feeding) and 7:9 (restricted feeding).

Kakapo reproduce in leks, that is, males engage in nuptial rituals of movement and vocalizations to impress females, and females choose the winners of the contest. Males then provide sperm, and thereafter females take full charge of bringing up the offspring. Looking at this reproductive strategy through three generations, those females that nurture the males which, as adults, will win the reproductive contests of their leks, secure the transfer of their genes to their grand-chicks. Therefore, a son is an advantageous (evolutionary) investment, but subject to the uncertainty of whether a given male will outcompete his rivals in mating. Kakapo females seem to take the risk of delivering more males when their body condition peaks, relative to food availability. The reversal of sex ratios, through variation in diet regimes, reflects the malleability of evolutionary processes that can thus aid the management of endangered species.

Salvador Herrando-Pérez

–

References

1. Courchamp, F. et al. (1999). Inverse density dependence and the Allee effect. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 14: 405-410
2. Trivers, R. L. & Willard, D. E. (1973). Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring. Science, 179: 90-92
3. Cassey, P. et al. (2006). Revised evidence for facultative sex ratio adjustment in birds: a correction. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273: 3129-3130
4. West, S. A. & Sheldon, B. C. (2002). Constraints in the evolution of sex ratio adjustment. Science, 295: 1685-1688
5. Ewen, J. G. et al. (2004). Facultative primary sex ratio variation: a lack of evidence in birds? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 271: 1277-1282
6. Tella, J. L. (2001). Sex-ratio theory in conservation biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 16: 76-77
7. Wedekind, C. (2002). Manipulating sex ratios for conservation: short-term risks and long-term benefits. Animal Conservation, 5: 13-20
8. Clout, M. N. et al. (2002). Effects of supplementary feeding on the offspring sex ratio of kakapo: a dilemma for the conservation of a polygynous parrot. Biological Conservation, 107: 13-18
9. Elliott, G. P. et al. (2001). Intensive management of a critically endangered species: the kakapo. Biological Conservation, 99: 121-133
10. Robertson, B. C. et al. (2006). Sex allocation theory aids species conservation. Biology Letters, 2: 229-231