Congratulations to our two 2007 BSSA Field Grant recipients - …biologysocietysa.com/files/Newsletters/Issue31.pdf · 2010. 3. 29. · Virtue, a Senoir Weed Ecologist , (APCG, DWLBC)

Issue 31: May 2007

Biology Society of South Australia, c/o Department of Environmental Biology DP312,

The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005.

Website: http://users.esc.net.au/~biologysociety E-mail: [email protected]

Congratulations to our two 2007 BSSA Field Grant recipients -

Udani Sirisena

and

Claudia Flaxman

Claudia and Udani will each be given $1 500 for their PhD projects. Thanks to all who came to the 2006 BSSA Quiz Night as you helped to raise money for these grants. Our sincere thanks also to David Mussared and NRMjobs http://www.nrmjobs.com.au for contributing towards the grant money being awarded. See p 4.

Do you need volunteers?

Email your project de-tails to: [email protected]

What would you like to see in future BSSA

newsletters?

Email laura.ruykys @adelaide.edu.au with suggestions.

This issue:

Introduced pest species

• 2007 BSSA Grant

recipients

• President speaks

• Creature feature

• Upcoming events

• Phytophthora

cinnamomi

• Feature Scientist:

Dr John Virtue

• Pig tales

• Starlings

• Volunteer

Opportunities

I SSUE 31 PAGE 2 B IOLOGY SOCIETY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

The President Speaks! Hello all,

I was very impressed at the massive turnout for our first meeting & Welcome BBQ in March. Thanks for coming and joining up for 2007! We hope to see you at our next meet-ing Thursday 10 May where we’ve got the President of the SA Herp Group and our BSSA Field Research Grant recipient from 2006 to keep us entertained. We also want to send a special thanks to NRMjobs who have helped us with their generous donations at the quiz night and for putting additional funds towards our Annual Field Research Grant this year. We were able to give out two this year, so check out their projects on page 4.

Now this issue has a slight introduced species bent to it. Being an introduced pest to this land myself, I am always impressed how we invaders can adapt so well to the Aus-tralian climate & conditions. Camels have been in the news lately, and another arid in-vaders include the donkey, our Creature Feature below. We’ve got that pesky Phy-tophthora and the serious threat it poses to entire ecosystems, especially in SW WA where Janet, our VP, has taken time to write an article. Our Feature Scientist is John Virtue, a Senoir Weed Ecologist , (APCG, DWLBC) whose love of plants has led to bat-tling a suite of invasives recently from behind the desk and in the field. We’ve also got weird and wild tales of pigs from John McRae at the Invasive Animals CRC and a bit of starling info from yours truly.

Included in our volunteer opportunities is one you can do just by stopping at roadkill whilst on your travels — Oliver Berry is looking for bits of fox, so if you can help him out, write to him and get a kit to collect for his PhD. Also check out the Tubestock Planting Festival on KI during Uni break in July and get in touch with Dave if you are interested (see next page). Happy Volunteering!!

(Feral) CREATURE FEATURE - Donkey (Equus asinus)

There are up to 5 million donkeys living in Australia, mainly in the central arid

regions, the Kimberleys and the Top End, NT. Donkeys were first brought to

the country in 1866 to serve as pack animals and in haulage teams. How-

ever, motorised transport replaced them in the early 1900s and feral herds

were first reported in the 1920s.

Donkeys form social units of either a stallion and 1-3 mares and their offspring, or bachelor groups. In

central Australia, home-ranges can be up to 88 km2 and they can survive in areas without surface water.

In favourable conditions, donkeys can produce one foal per year. Donkeys are now a serious environ-

mental pest, causing erosion and damaging vegetation with their hard hoofs. They also damage and foul

waterholes and introduce weeds through seeds carried on their manes, tails and in their dung. They im-

pact on native animals through competition for food and by degrading waterholes, which can be core ref-

uges during drought. Control can include being culled when congregating around waterholes, mustering

and aerial culling. Fertility control techniques are currently of limited use.


DON’T FORGET... 10 May, 2007 5.30pm

BSSA general meeting and presentations by:

Gavin Kluske President, SA Herpetology Group

“Field techniques for reptiles”

&

Diane Colombelli-Negrel Recipient of the 2006 BSSA Grant “Acoustic

behaviour in a predator context”

10 August 2007 5.30pm

Ken Sanderson, Flinders University

“Bat activity around Adelaide”

Ken will also bring an anabat

and set it up on the Barr Smith lawns to see if we are able to

detect any bats.

SPECIAL NOTICE: 2007 KI TUBESTOCK PLANTING FESTIVAL Background: In 2004 the KI Threatened Plant Project (managed by the Department for Environment and Heritage and the Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Management Board) in conjunction with Cygnet Park Sanctuary commenced a broad scale restoration project designed to re-establish some of the island's most threatened plant species and communities. Since then several large trials have been established to develop best practice restoration techniques. The aim in 2007 is to begin to apply these techniques both over large areas and at multiple sites. This will include planting over 20,000 tubestock within a total area of 20 ha. Friday 6th of July - Preparation of four restoration sites for planting

Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th of July - Heaps of tubestock planting to re-construct threatened plant habitat

Monday 9th of July - Half day bus tour of eastern Kangaroo Island looking at research and bushland management sites of the KI Threatened Plant Project (for those with an interest in bushland management including fire, weed and native herbivore management as well as habitat re-establishment).

Meeting place every day: Cygnet Park Sanctuary (Eastern side of Ropers Road, gate 800m north of Playford Highway, 20km WSW of Kingscote) meet @ 9am (likely to be working until 5pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday) What to bring: Sturdy footwear (gumboots are not a bad idea), hat, raincoat, gloves (if you have them) and clothes that are going to get dirty. Hand tools, morning tea, lunch will be provided on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A BBQ dinner and huge campfire will be also provided at about 6:30pm on Saturday evening. A free bus will be provided on Monday 9th to transport everyone to the various field sites. However you must make your own way to KI.

Interested? Please contact: Dave and Fiona Taylor, RSD 277 Kingscote (hm) 0885539118 or (wk) 0885532381, email [email protected]

Photos by: John Sullivan (above) David Cook (below)


CONGRATULATIONS! 2007 BSSA Field Research Grant Recipients

Claudia Flaxman - Seagrass Calcareous Epiphytes: growth rates and post- mortem contribution to the seafloor and the beach.

Claudia is investigating carbonate-producing epiphytes growing on seagrass along the SA coast to provide infor-mation on their importance in the near-shore marine ecosystems. This will provide information on the signifi-cance of calcareous epiphytes to the production and destination of epiphytic carbonate sediment. Although current findings indicate that seagrass calcareous epi-phytes do not have a deleterious affect on sea-grass health in a non-polluted environment, there is currently no information for polluted environments. Consequently,

Claudia will be sampling at two unpolluted sites, Marion Bay (Investigator Strait) and Wool Bay (Gulf St Vincent). The data gathered from here will then be compared to that from Port Noar-lunga, which has polluted sea-water as a result of the adjacent metropolitan environment.

This work will help to build an understanding of the role of healthy sea-grass beds to the mainte-nance of healthy seas, and how this is especially important in urbanised areas. The money from the BSSA grant will go towards paying professional divers to deploy and harvest the artificial sea-grass that Claudia is using at Port Noarlunga.

Udani Sirisena - Systematic studies on Thysanotus (R.Br) (fringed lilies). The genus Thysanotus is distributed widely across South Australia, where it is common in Eucalyp-tus associations. However, the genus is relatively unexplored, with no detailed systematic studies (molecular and/or morphological) to determine species boundaries or phylogenetic relationships among the taxa. Udani will be undertaking a detailed systematic study of the genus using as many of the known species and variant forms as possible. For this, Udani will be obtaining chro-mosome and DNA data, as well as floral and other plant characteristics.

Detailed study of the Thysanotus genus will clarify species’ boundaries. In particular, it will help determine which Thysanotus species are in SA, and which of them are endemic. In turn, this will then help improve con-servation status and management for the taxa in the state. In particular, if there are species that are rare in SA, the results from this study will en-able development of appropriate management and/or conservation strategies. It may also facilitate using Thysanotus in forest restoration pro-grams. Udani will be using the money from the grant to fund her travel and equipment costs.


Phytophthora cinnamomi dieback By Janet Newell

The most dramatic threatening process in south-western Australia is dieback. Dieback is caused by Phy-

tophthora cinnamomi (Pc), a species of water mould that causes root-rot. This prevents the uptake of wa-

ter and nutrients by the plant, causing 'die back' and the eventual death of the plant.

Although Pc is also a significant problem in the Mt Lofty Ranges and

the Fleurieu Peninsula in SA, I don’t think I realised the seriousness of

this threat until coming to south-west Western Australia, with its high

floristic diversity, especially of Proteaceae, Epacridaceae, Papiliona-

ceae, and Myrtaceae, the most susceptible plant families. In this region

of WA, at least 40% of the plant species are susceptible.

Phytophthora dieback does not just kill a few plants; it causes the col-

lapse of entire ecosystems by wiping out all of the susceptible species.

This results in dramatic changes in the floristic and structural character-

istics of the ecosystem, for example changing diverse heathlands into sedgelands. And this change is

irreversible and long term, as Pc remains in the soil indefinitely.

Pc dieback was first observed in Western Australia in 1921, hav-

ing probably been introduced by early European settlers bringing

in fruit trees. It is not just a threat to our natural bushland, but

also gardens and horticulture crops such as macadamias, avoca-

dos and native flowers. It has been estimated that without control,

Phytophthora could cost up to $160 million per year nationally, not

to mention the loss of native plant species and ecosystem ser-

vices such as the production of oxygen.

Unfortunately, there is no eradication method for Phytophthora.

The application of phosphate, either through injection into a plant’s trunk or aerial spraying of whole plant

communities, can increase the resistance of most susceptible plant species. However, this treatment does

not eradicate Pc in areas where Pc already exists, it only prolongs the survival of plants for up to 2 (aerial

application) or 5 (truck injections) years.

Therefore, currently the most effective way to manage dieback is through preventing the spread of Phy-

tophthora in the first place. Phytophthora is soil and water-borne and so spreads via the movement of

spores in water or the transportation of infected soil by humans and/or machinery. Therefore, it is essential

that people undertake appropriate hygiene measures when in infected areas, including removing mud

from shoes and vehicles, and washing vehicles down. So, next time you go bushwalking, please remem-

ber to clean the mud off your shoes!!!! Further information on Phytophthora dieback is available from:

http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/biodiversity/pdfs/phytophthora_booklet.pdf

Distribution of Phytophthora cinnamomi in Australia

Dhttp://www.cpsm.murdoch.edu.au/images/signs/Pdistribution.jpg

Progress of dieback disease as it invades a Banksia baxteri stand near Cheyne Beach, east of Albany, WA,.http://members.iinet.net.au/~cwills/rtwCALM2.html


Feature Scientist - Dr John Virtue I was employed as the Senior Weed Ecologist for the Animal and Plant Control Commission of South Australian in September 1995. Nearly twelve years later I’m still in the same role, though like any government department we’ve had various name changes and restructures. Currently I be-long to the Animal and Plant Control Group of the Department of Water Land and Biodiversity Conservation. Regardless of names, there’s still plenty of weeds and much work to do.

I’ve always had a love of plants, with various veggie plots, pot plants, ornamental gardens and tree plantings throughout my childhood, which was spent mostly at Cowra in central NSW where I grew up on a small farm. I had a great agriculture teacher at school and, for whatever reason, had decided by Year 8 that I was going to study Agricultural Science at Sydney University. In ret-rospect weeds were also an interest – for a Year 10 agriculture project I found 22 different flower colour variants of Paterson’s Curse (which I naturally now call Salvation Jane, Echium plantagi-neum).

The agriculture degree at Sydney Uni was four years and I specialised towards plants. By fourth year I was caught between pursuing native plant ecology, commercial use of native plants and weeds. With a compulsory 18 weeks of practical work experience throughout the degree there wasn’t much time for volunteering. However, through the work experience I’d got to work on various farms and nurseries, in CSIRO’s pasture group in Canberra and lastly at the Waite with a week with Dr Margaret Sedgley’s group on banksia breeding, followed by a week on a cut flower farm at Blewitt Springs. My honours thesis investigated why Melaleuca deanei was a rare plant in Sydney’s sandstone flora. In the end it all converged and I ended up doing a PhD on weed management in tea tree (M. alternifolia) oil plantations, through Sydney Uni but based with NSW Agriculture at Wollongbar on the far north coast of NSW (Lismore/Byron Bay region).

I look back at my PhD now with mixed thoughts. It was great to be slotted into the tea tree oil re-search team and be part of a research station community. It was also a lush and picturesque place to live and my partner (now wife, Lili) and I know we had a special opportunity being based there. I did struggle though with the isolation from other postgraduate students and was always questioning whether I was doing enough for a PhD thesis (I was). I also missed out on be-ing in an academic environment that comes from being based within a university. Whilst the re-gion was a beautiful place I felt I belonged to a more southerly climate of eucalypts rather than rainforest.

It was simply chance that I saw the ad for the Senior Weed Ecologist at the Waite and, having had that work experience there, I was keen to move to Adelaide from a career and personal level. Having also run out of PhD funds and having a 3 month old baby it was also important to take the job!

I would say that I struggled for direction with the job for the first few years because I was a developing weed scientist in a research group of vertebrate pest scientists. What kept my sanity though was the opportunity of attending a few meet-ings with the just-started Weeds CRC. I was able to build up a peer support network outside my own workgroup and that evolved into various collaborative projects. My key role was to develop a method of assessing the weed potential of plant species in SA – surely this had been sorted out else-where and I could just adapt it to SA, but not so. I’ve since become a member of a new discipline of weed risk assess-John Virtue conducting a vegetation

survey on the impacts of onion weed.


ment and there’s been a range of highlights. In 1998 I led a consultancy for the criteria to deter-mine Australia’s Weeds of National Significance (WoNS). In 1999 I convened the 1st International Workshop on Weed Risk Assessment at Glenelg - one of the best things I’ve ever done because it built up a great sense of community, which continues to this day. I’m now a task leader in the Weeds CRC and developed a handbook on weed risk management that was published in 2006 by Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand. I’ve since adapted this for the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation and ended up teaching it in Panama last October to delegates from eight central American countries. It was amazing to see that my simple little spreadsheet that I developed with Animal & Plant Control Boards in SA, could be applied successfully, in Spanish, to tropical weeds on the other side of the world.

I see my work on weed risk management as bringing scientific principles into policy decisions. It’s not ground-breaking - rather it’s deliberately simplistic to make weed science accessible to those people that have to decide which weeds should be priorities for control. It’s a way of building up a profile for a particular weed and what information on its biology, ecology and impacts is needed to make a decision.

I have been able to do some “real” science in my job. I’ve got a 9 year experiment running on the impacts of bridal creeper (Asparagus asparagoides) at Owen in the mid-North and am in-volved with national research on the effectiveness of its biocontrol agents. I’ve also looked at the impacts of and control options for branched broomrape (Orobanche ramosa), a parasitic weed. These days I’ve got two staff, Dennis Gannaway as the national WoNS coordinator for bridal creeper and Anna Williams as the broomrape research officer. As happens in government I’ve become more policy and management-focused and hence more desk- and meeting-bound. I’ve made the decision that overall I can make more advances in weed management in South Australia by fostering new projects rather than trying to do it all myself, and am always keen to encourage and support student projects.

In terms of volunteering I’m an irregular bush carer, with a Bush for Life site near my house in Blackwood. Going off to tackle weeds can sometimes seem like home-work, but there’s something therapeutic about drilling and filling olives. My main volunteer time has gone into establishing and helping to run the Weed Management Society of South Australia (WMSSA). We have around 70 individual/organisational members and just ran the 15th Australian Weeds Conference last September in Ade-laide. As chair it was particularly time-consuming and stressful, but it was such a relief when it fell into place and the positive feedback flowed from delegates. I’ve since become the president of the Council of Australasian Weed Societies (of which WMSSA is a member) so there’s still plenty of weed activity outside my work time.

The particular challenges I see for weed management in South Australia are improving our early detection and rapid response structures, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of weed control in natural ecosystems (including better integration with restoration techniques) and get-ting more people actively involved in weed management. Climate change will also throw up new problems.

There are days when I’d just like to live in blissful ignorance and enjoy the orange, yellow and purple flowers of the beaches, bush and countryside in spring. But as long as there’s ways of im-proving weed management, whether that be at the scientific, policy or on-ground levels, then I’m happy to be a member of the SA weeding community.

One of John Virtue’s nemeses, the feral olive.


Pig Tales John McRae

Project Officer, Feral Pig Research, Invasive Animals CRC

The feral pig (Sus scrofa) was introduced to Australia around the time of European settlement and was

well established in many rural areas by the mid 1800s. Although its distribution is both ephemeral and

patchy, it has now colonised more than one third of the mainland and several islands (Figure 1). One

estimate puts the population of feral pigs at between 13.5 and 23.5 million individuals depending on

seasonal conditions. That’s roughly one pig for every Australian. In South Australia, known popula-

tions are confined to the Channel Country in the far NE and Kangaroo Island although there is anecdotal

reports of feral pigs migrating along the Murray River into areas just East of Renmark. If confirmed,

this’ll be one more thing that can be blamed on the Victorians.

Feral pig activity is cited under the EPBC Act (1999) as being responsible for several key threatening

processes, including habitat degradation, predation

and disease transmission. Feral pigs are seen as a

major threat to several native species and ecological

communities. It has also been estimated that they

cost Australian agriculture over $100 million annu-

ally. In addition to actual costs, there are huge po-

tential costs associated with feral pigs acting as vec-

tors for diseases not presently in the country. Feral

pigs can be infected with foot and mouth disease and are known to be a potent source of virus excre-

tions. A recent government report suggested that a foot and mouth outbreak would cut Australian agri-

cultural output by $8 billion in the first year and cost up to 25000 jobs. The feral pig is clearly a damag-

ing invasive species whose negative impact demands both continuous intervention and ongoing re-

search.

The feral pig is an omnivorous scavenger with a keen sense of smell and a voracious appetite. It’s

hardly surprising then, that the most successful control measures (trapping and lethal baiting) rely on the

animal’s behavioural response to food. Whether trapping or baiting, the doomed pig must first be lured

to a control point and then enticed to consume the bait or enter the trap. Any means of enhancing this

process and in the case of bait, maximising uptake, would be a valuable management tool with the po-

tential to both reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of control programs. Olfactory lures are

widely used for such purposes.


Many weird and wonderful lures have been tried over the years. These include such delights as: fer-

mented genitals, rancid fish oil, rotten eggs, faeces, urine, fermented grain, creosote, fermented anal

sacs, strawberry extract and rotting carcasses. Vertebrate pest control officers will often use a combi-

nation of particularly rank ingredients to concoct their own secret potion which is guaranteed to work

every time. As much as your mouth may be watering, these naturally brewed adhoc lures are rather

impractical for large scale, enterprise level pig control. If there was an outbreak of foot and mouth to-

morrow, we could not sit around waiting until a hundred thousand anal sacs were harvested, fermented,

mixed with fox urine and made ready to deploy.

Recognising this problem, I undertook a small scale field study in 2006 as part of a Master of Environ-

mental Science at ANU. I took a commercially manufactured, aerosol dispensed olfactory lure for

canids called Feralmone® and designed a trial to see if it would attract pigs. The active ingredient in

Feralmone® is synthetic fermented egg, a complex compound reputed to share olfactory properties with

putrefying flesh and certain mammalian scent glands. What pig could resist such a delicious combina-

tion? With canids, it works on many levels: appetite, reproduction, territoriality and curiosity. The

available literature suggested that it might also act as a deterrent to herbivore visitation. A highly desir-

able outcome when using poison baits. Record dry conditions at Woomargama National Park meant

that I did not get sufficient feral pig visitation to say conclusively whether SFE had worked as a lure. I

did however, obtain a small amount of data which supported the contention that some herbivores find

SFE fairly disgusting.

For feral pigs, smell is their keenest and most influential sense. They inhale the olfactory landscape

and follow their nose. In the absence of biological control measures (deemed unacceptable due to Aus-

tralia’s large domestic pig industry) the development of target specific baits and lures could be the best

option available for limiting the impact of this damaging invasive species.


My Darlings, the Starlings… Tina Bentz

I have been studying the Common Starling (Sturnus vul-garis) for the past 5 years. Even though they are a pest, I have come to respect them for their versatility, tenacity and misplaced beauty. They are one of the most abun-dant and widespread bird species on earth, with an esti-mated worldwide population of 600 million, with over 200 million in North America alone.

Starlings have adapted to a variety of habitats and are now considered a pest species throughout much of the world. They are also highly tolerant to human disturbance. Originating from Europe and Asia and introduced worldwide during the 1800s, they are now considered one of the top 100 ‘world’s worst invasive species.’

They were brought to Australia and New Zealand by acclimatisation societies that wanted a more European flora and fauna, with releases starting in late 1850s. One tale goes that all birds and flow-ers and plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays were priorities for introductions, and our starling appears in King Henry the IV for its prowess as a mimic. Starlings were a successful invader to both Australia (after 9 introductions) and New Zealand (after 14 introductions) in a review of exotic bird invasions to Australasia. Starlings have since spread and established throughout the eastern states (TAS, NSW, VIC, QLD, SA (& KI), and ACT). Distribution of starlings was thought to not have made it past the SA-WA border due to the Nullabor acting as a dispersal barrier, and an eradication and control campaign in place since 1971. However, intensive field research by the DAFWA during the past few years has located established populations as far west as Esperance.

The Starling’s highly adaptive ecology has allowed them to become a major pest to many sectors. The damage that starlings inflict ranges from: concerns for public health and safety to significant economic impacts on agricultural and livestock industries; as well as being detrimental to the environment and involved in bird strikes at air-ports. In particular, Starlings are of environmental concern due to being a major disperser weeds. In Australia, they disperse feral ol-ives (Olea europaea) into native vegetation. Starlings also consume and spread boxthorn, bridal creeper, blackberries, and bone seed to name just a few others. In south-eastern Australian coastal grass-

lands, starlings are a major disperser of the invasive indigenous shrub Acacia sophorae, which has subsequent negative effects on plant biodiversity.

Another environmental concern is that the Starling competes with native species for resources like nesting hollows and food. Starlings nest in just about any crevice they can fit into, be it a roof, tree hollow, sign, or fencepost. Some return to the same breeding areas year after year, even nesting in the same hollow in subsequent seasons. There are few studies in Australia docu-menting the effect of hollow competition by Common Starlings in this notori-ously hollow-limited environment. However, the dominance of starlings at hollows (early breeders and double to triple brooded) and their tenacity dur-ing breeding season (destroy one nest and they’ll make another in less than a week) means that native fauna are undoubtedly in danger of losing nesting sites. This could lead to irreparable declines and loss of native species.

Starlings swarming around a spilt grain in Ceduna. (Bentz)

A Starling’s nest and eggs in a cement fencepole. (Woolnough)

A male starling breeding season plumage (blue base to the beak) Patob lab file


Light Reading (pdfs of these papers will be available by request)

We’d like to congratulate our very own membership officer (and past website manager) Grace Chan on her first scientific publication:

Chan WS, Recknagel F, Cao H, Park H-P (2007) Elucidation and short-term forecasting of mi-crocystin concentrations in Lake Suwa (Japan) by means of artificial neural networks and evolu-tionary algorithms. 41 10, 2247-2255.

And we have a paper from Ken Sanderson about bats for his upcoming BSSA talk:

Sanderson KJ, Jaeger DA, Bonner JF and Jansen E, 2006 Activity patterns of bats at house roosts near Adelaide. Australian Mammalogy 28: 137-145.

Starlings require protein to live and breed, with invertebrates com-prising over half their daily food intake. Other components of their diet are highly varied and can include fruit, berries, vegetables, meat and food scraps, and seeds of cultivated grains, palm trees (Phoenix spp.), saltbush (Atriplex spp.), clover, wild oats (Avena fatua), Paspalum spp. and other grasses. The most commonly eaten food items are larvae of Coleoptera (beetles) and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) in the soil. Juveniles, present in early summer and mid autumn, will forage more often in arboreal habitats and con-sume more fruit than adult birds. Juveniles are less proficient at locating invertebrates beneath the soil and remain arboreal even if fruits are not available.

Starlings spend over half the day feeding, with the highest proportion of time spent in permanent open grasslands and gardens, preferring those with shorter grass. The starling loves to follow sheep and other livestock around as they kick up insects. I’ve seen them “ox-pecking” sheep (and this comes with the added bonus to graziers of fouled wool from starling droppings). Other feeding sites vary seasonally and include orchards, vineyards, cereal crops, feedlots and rubbish sites. Feeding duration in cereal and horticultural crops is usually shorter, where large flocks can rapidly remove substantial quantities of fruit and grain. Once a feeding pattern is established starlings will utilise the same for-aging sites for extended periods, but unlike other species, they have no consistent peak feeding times. Starlings feed in large flocks of up to 20,000 which improves their feeding efficiency and decreases losses from predators.

Ironically, as Australia is looking for ways to rid themselves of starlings, they are declining in their native European range (e.g. Finland, Sweden, UK, etc.) and studies are being conducted to aid in con-servation efforts. Some say this comes from changing agricultural practises, from grazing paddocks to arable crops, which impacts the availability of main food resources (e.g. earthworms and leatherjack-ets). Long-term monitoring by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has shown that starling num-bers have fallen by 66% in Britain since the mid-70s. Juvenile survival has also declined from one-third to 15% in recent years, and nesting sites are in short supply. The concern is so great in Europe that the starling is red listed as a bird of high conservation concern. So, this versatile adaptor is out of place again, even in its homeland.

If you see starlings in WA, please contact 1800 084 881 and report their location!

A Starling delivering food to a nest hollow


Fieldwork opportunities

All field trips are carried out under the auspices, supervision and insurance provisions of the organisations offering the work, not the Biology Society. It is your responsibility to check with the organisation and determine the arrangements you need to make for insurance, liability etc.

Project Location Activities Coordinator When?

One to Four Days Effects of mining exploration on mallee vegetation

Pinkawillinie CP, Eyre Peninsula

Analysing veg, ant activity and collecting seeds

Lindy Scott [email protected]

August 2007

National Trust Nature Reserve

Adelaide Hills and others throughout SA

Bush care, weed control and regenera-tion programs

Phil McNamara Pmcnamara @nationaltrustsa.org.au or Russ Sinclair russell.sinclair @adelaide.edu.au

Throughout 2007

Pygmy Bluetongue Lizards

Mid-north of SA

Searching for lizards in spiderholes

Julie Schofield [email protected]

Various dates throughout 2007

KI Tubestock planting festival

Kangaroo Island Planting & Restora-tion of threatened habitats

Dave Taylor [email protected] *see website for more details

July 6-9 2007

One to Two Weeks

Wombats in SA Four locations throughout SA

Spotlighting, catching and gathering data on wombats

Elisa Sparrow [email protected]

Various dates throughout 2007

Broad-shelled turtles

Riverlands Data collection on broad-shelled turtles

Deborah Bower deborah. [email protected]

Various dates 2007 and 2008

Fox DNA project Throughout Australia

DNA sampling from dead foxes

www.foxdna.animals. uwa.edu.au

Throughout 2007

Fire ecology survey

Eyre Peninsula conservation parks

Catching reptiles and some small mammals in pitfall traps

Don Driscoll / Annabel Smith [email protected]

Summer 07/08

Biodiversity of Kenyan/Tanzanian border

Kenya Various projects with marine mammals and big game animals

Global Vision Interna-tional. *See BSSA website

Throughout 2007

Koonamore NE pastoral area, north of Yunta

Gathering veg data and general reserve maintenance

Russ Sinclair russell.sinclair @adelaide.edu.au

November/ December 2007

Small mammals and reptiles

Pinkawillinie CP Trapping and tracking animals

Joanne Lee [email protected]

June, July and August 2007

Mallee Fire & Bio-diversity Project

Various SA & NSW Sites *See BSSA website

Habitat surveys, bo-tanic sampling & Her-barium prep

Lauren Brown [email protected]

9-22 July, 6-19 August; 2-8 September


The Aims of the Biology Society of South Australia are:

• To develop and maintain contact between peo-

ple with an interest in field biology and the con-servation and management of natural resources in South Australia.

• Provide fieldwork opportunities, either directly through the society’s own activities, or, more commonly, by advertising requests for assistance by professional ecologists or conservation or-ganisations.

• Organise field camps to provide additional op-portunities for members to assist with field-based biological studies.

• Seek government support for field-based activi-ties relevant to the conservation and manage-ment of South Australian biota.

• Provide independent comment on proposals that impact the status of biodiversity.

Membership is open to anyone with an interest in field biology and gaining research skills through volunteering. General Meetings BSSA meets quarterly at the University of Adelaide. Our meetings are on the 2nd Thursday of every March, May, August and September at 5.30 pm. At each meeting there is a guest speaker as well as an opportunity to meet friendly, like-minded people including practising biologist who work in your field of interest. Please join us for beers and nibbles on these relaxing and educa-tional Thursday evenings. Annual Quiz Night BSSA holds an annual quiz night on the 2nd Friday in Oc-tober at Burnside Community Centre. See our website for further details. Enquiries Membership enquiries should be directed to the Membership Officer, Grace Chan at email: [email protected] Activities suggestions and advertising for volunteers to help with your research should be directed to [email protected] General enquiries about the society can be made to BSSA President, Tina Bentz at Tel: (08) 8303 3998, Fax: (08) 8303 6222 or email: [email protected]

BSSA Membership Form Name: ……………………………………………... Address: …………………………………………... City, State, Code: …………………………………. Telephone: ………………………………………... E-mail: ……………………………………………... How would you like to receive your quarterly news- letter? Electronically Sent to the address above Sent to the alternate address below Alternate Address: …………………………………………………….. City, State, Code: …………………………………. Telephone: ………………………………………... E-mail: ……………………………………………... Annual Membership $10

Is this a new membership or a renewal? Please state your main biological interests (certain taxa, etc.) ………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………. Please send your membership form along with $10 membership fee to: BSSA Membership Officer C/- Environmental Biology DP312 University of Adelaide Benham Building Adelaide, SA 5005 Phone: 08 8303 3998 Fax: 08 8303 6222 Email: [email protected]

Sender:

Biology Society of South Australia c/o Environmental Biology DP 312 The University of Adelaide Adelaide 5005

Documents

Congratulations to our two 2007 BSSA Field Grant recipients - …biologysocietysa.com/files/Newsletters/Issue31.pdf · 2010. 3. 29. · Virtue, a Senoir Weed Ecologist , (APCG, DWLBC)