There was once an old lady who swallowed a fly…

July 3, 2015 / aucklandecology / 4 Comments

Posted by Sam Lincoln

Biological systems are incredibly complex (see ecological networks blog). Introducing a spider to eat a fly may not help; New Zealand found that out the hard way with rabbits and ferrets. When one food source is running low, most predators prey-switch, and in New Zealand that often means moving onto our native birds. We regularly control rats both in our homes and local parks with little knowledge of the indirect impacts wrought upon biological systems. My Masters project aims to take a first look at how domestic cats respond to the removal of rats in local parks – are they eating more of our birds?

In Auckland Council’s local parks, a mix of native and introduced birds share their space with predators such as rats and domestic cats. There has been much recent debate about the impact of cats in New Zealand; while scientists agree that cats have negative impacts on our native species, the SPCA often has a far more cat-friendly view citing rodent control by domestic cats as potentially helping birds. Even politicians are involved in the cat debate, with Conservation Minister Maggie Barry in one corner fighting for kiwi versus Prime Minister John Key representing Moonbeam. My pilot study of 11 cameras set for two nights captured 14 individual cats in two local parks (as well as a few possums and an MSc student).

Photos from cat camera pilot study, clockwise from top left: two cats, MSc student Sam Lincoln and a possum. Cats were photographed visiting both parks during the day and night.

By assessing the changes to cat behaviour after removing rats from half of the sites, I will get a first look into what really goes on between cats, rats and birds – is rat control bad for birds due to increased predation by cats, or are rats the main culprits in an urban environment? What would happen if cats were to go? Should we instead be moving toward a predator free New Zealand where our birds can exist without either of these mammalian invaders?

Sam Lincoln is an MSc student in the Centre for Biodiversity & Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. She is trying to disentangle interactions between domestic cats and rats in urban environments. She is supervised by Margaret Stanley, John Innes and Al Glen.

What we talk about when we talk about ecological networks

June 11, 2015June 12, 2015 / aucklandecology / 3 Comments

Posted by Carolina Lara @carislaris

I was recently asked by an engineer friend of mine what my PhD project was about. In my (failed) attempt to put it into simple words, I ended up giving him a large discourse on the topic. A couple of days passed and he got back to me to say “… I always thought biological systems were simpler”. I am new to this world of ecological networks, but simplicity is not a word that can be used to describe them. More specifically for animal-plant mutualistic networks, a set of animals interacts mutualistically with a set of plants that are connected to another set of animals that interact with another set of plants. Animals disperse a plant´s genes and get food as a reward, as in the case of pollination and seed dispersal ecosystem services.

Kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae), New Zealand’s native pigeon, feeding on Nikau Palm (Rhopalostylis sapida) fruit

The dynamics of these networks and how they are built have profound implications on the coexistence of species and moreover, they can give us insights about how resilient they are to human disturbances, such as habitat fragmentation. It has now been recognised that conservation efforts should not only be directed to species alone, but should also be extended to the interactions and networks they form. Loss of interactions would translate into loss of ecological functions and this could happen even before actual species extinctions, a concept known as extinction debt of ecological interactions. Daniel Janzen, a pioneer scientist in tropical ecology, stated more than 40 years ago that “what escapes the eye, however, is a much more insidious kind of extinction: the extinction of ecological interactions”. So, we really are talking about complexity when we talk about networks. And I’m glad I changed my friend´s perception of just how complex biological systems are.

Carolina Lara M. is a PhD Candidate within the Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. Her research interests focus on seed dispersal networks within fragmented landscapes. She is supervised by Margaret Stanley, Jason Tylianakis, Karine David, and Anna Santure.

SCIENCE NEEDS YOU!!

June 5, 2015 / aucklandecology / 3 Comments

Posted by Alice Baranyovits @ABaranyovits

New Zealand’s native pigeon, the kererū, are important seed dispersers as they swallow fruits whole.

Having spent a fair amount of time wandering around Auckland city with a large blue antenna, I have been stopped and asked what I am doing quite a bit. Whilst it was very tempting to tell people I was looking for aliens or just trying to get a good signal for my phone, I did eventually explain to them that I was radio tracking kererū (NZ pigeon; Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae).

Alice radio tracking kererū in urban Auckland.

On the whole, people seemed pretty interested and would often tell me about the kererū they see around the city.
This got me thinking, perhaps there was a way I could get people to record this information so I could get more of an understanding of where kererū were in the city and where they weren’t. So I created a website, imaginatively entitled ‘The Auckland Kererū Project’ as a platform where members of the public can record their sightings as well as information on the plants in their gardens.

The use of volunteers in research, also known as citizen science, has long been a tool of ornithologists and ecologists – the Audubon Christmas bird count in the US is one of the longest running having started in 1900. More recently the number of citizen science projects has been increasing, helped in part by the internet and the advancement of mobile technology, which has led to much easier data collection.

One of the main benefits of citizen science is that very large data sets can be collected often over a large geographical area and time scale, much larger than what could be collected by a single researcher. Data can also be collected from private land, removing the access issues researchers often face, especially in urban areas. Participants in citizen science can also benefit through increased knowledge and appreciation of the local biota and issues in their local community and through gaining an insight into the scientific process.

Alice is studying how kererū move around fragmented landscapes and more specifically how they utilise the urban environment.

There are some drawbacks, however, that must be taken into account during data analysis. Participants often have variable skill levels which can lead to issues with data quality. Variations in sampling effort both in time and space can also be a concern. Despite these issues, citizen science is a great tool and is likely to become even more prevalent in the future.

Want to get involved? There are many citizen sciences projects in New Zealand – one of the largest is NatureWatch NZ, which listed many different projects you can get involved with. Or how about Landcare Research’s annual garden bird survey? But of course don’t forget about the Auckland Kererū Project!

Alice Baranyovits is a PhD student at the Centre of Biodiversity and Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. She is researching the movements of kererū in urban areas and the implications on seed dispersal of native and introduced plants. She is supervised by Mick Clout, Jacqueline Beggs & George Perry.

We need to talk about ALAN

May 15, 2015January 20, 2016 / aucklandecology / 1 Comment

Posted by Ellery McNaughton @EJ_McNaughton

Like Santa, ALAN probably sees you when you are sleeping. ALAN will be trying to get in through your window tonight. Perhaps you haven’t noticed ALAN. But ALAN is always there. ALAN may be having serious impacts on your health. ALAN kills innocent birds and baby turtles for fun.

ALAN will be following you home tonight… and when you get there, ALAN will already be waiting for you

And yet, who doesn’t love ALAN? Who hasn’t invited ALAN into their homes and cities?

Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) is a global issue. If you live in an urban area you cannot escape it. Streets, buildings, sports fields, parks, monuments – all are lit up come night time, and it’s easy to see why. Light enables us to see better, feel safer and do more at night. Plus it looks pretty. Bonus!

Sydney – an example of cities’ typical love of ALAN. When has pollution ever looked so fetching?

Light pollution doesn’t get the same attention that water or air pollution does. Perhaps this is because it doesn’t add a physical pollutant to the environment. Perhaps it is because it is seen as transient – once the lights are switched off in the morning, problem solved. Or perhaps it is because we have forgotten what the night sky should look like, so we fail to realise just how polluted our skies are. Whatever the reason, traditionally light pollution has only been an issue of concern among astronomers.

Recently however, there is light on the horizon in addition to light in our skies. There has been a surge of research into the myriad effects of ALAN on the environment (e.g. this special issue in Proc. R. Soc. B). Citizen science is being used to better understand variations in the levels of light pollution. The United Nations proclaimed 2015 to be the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, while the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2014 was awarded to the inventors of the blue light-emitting diode. This recent focus on light, light technologies and ALAN in particular opens up opportunities for discussion and thought on these issues. And really, this needs to happen. Because ALAN is most definitely on the naughty list, and we need to talk about it.

Ellery McNaughton is a PhD student in the Centre of Biodiversity and Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. Her project will investigate the effects of a city-wide changeover in streetlight technology on urban bird behaviour and ecosystem function. She is supervised by Margaret Stanley, Jacqueline Beggs, Kevin Gaston (University of Exeter, UK) and Daryl Jones (Griffith University, Australia).

Teenage mutant ninja ecological research

May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 / aucklandecology / 2 Comments

Posted by Josie Galbraith

What does it take to pull off a successful project in the urban jungle? The short answer is courage and people… pizza helps too. Last week I (along with my PhD supervisors) had a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) – Supplementary feeding restructures urban bird communities. This was a big milestone for me, but also hugely important for getting urban ecological research and the practice of bird feeding into the spotlight. Urban ecology has only relatively recently become a thing – before then it was just a clandestine notion, whispered in dark corridors and laughed at at meetings of ‘real’ ecologists. Now though, the urban environment is a place where real ecological science happens. Bold, brave, big science! It certainly takes a great deal of courage to plunge into the ocean of urban ecological research. It is awash with houses, high-rises, industry, roads, gardens, parks, and of course people. As such, there are a myriad of challenges and barriers associated with working in these areas that just don’t exist in more natural habitats.

Native silvereye at experimental feeding station

Native silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) at an experimental feeding station.

One of our experimental bird feeding stations, complete with radio antenna for scanning PIT-tagged birds, in the garden of a volunteer household

One of our experimental feeding stations, complete with antenna, in the garden of a volunteer household.

So how can we meet the challenges urban research presents, and make the most of inevitable time and funding constraints? Urban areas hold the greatest human resource of any habitat an ecologist will encounter – make use of it! There are plenty of keen folk willing and ready to get involved. In our study we recruited 24 householders purely through word-of-mouth and emails asking people to forward on our request. We had many more people respond than we needed, so could be more choosy with our property selection. What we were asking of these householders was pretty major – a 2-year commitment to an experimental feeding study, with those selected as “feeding properties” having to put out food for the birds every morning. We expected over the course of the project a number would find the study too onerous and drop-out. In fact, only one did. Our volunteer householders were brilliant to work with, and, while I did the key data collection, they provided plenty of additional observational information, which has been really valuable.

Urban areas are also fantastic fountains of goods and equipment, from pizza to nunchuks. We ecologists often need the weirdest things for our projects – we’ve all had those looks before at our local hardware store…

Ask and you shall receive! We found exactly what we needed for our study (a mountain of bread) by asking around.

Them: “Why do you need such a small piece of piping?”

Me: “I’m making an aspirator to suck up ants…”

Them: “Uhhhhh…*you’re so weird*…”

Local companies or businesses may be willing to donate materials support to the project, particularly if the things you need are someone else’s trash – off-cuts, end of lines, seconds. You never know what you’ll find, so it pays to ask. Our study required a mountain of bread (1580 loaves to be exact) – and we found one. Literally. A staggering amount of food gets wasted these days, and I didn’t want our study to be using food that could’ve been on someone’s plate. After a few phone calls we found what happens to our cities’ bread waste – it gets trucked to a food recycling factory before being turned into stock feed. The manager happily let us collect the bread we needed for the study each month – it was such a tiny fraction of the volumes that they process. Thanks Ecostock!

There are fascinating ecological things happening in our cities, and they are crying out for ecologist heroes to come and study them. Heroes that will boldly go where there are plenty of other humans. Heroes who will remember to involve their fellow humans and make use of all the resources cities have to offer. Heroes who are willing to push the boundaries, to redefine ecological science. Heroes that have the number for pizza delivery on speed-dial ‘cos you just never know when you might discover mutant turtles in the sewers…

Josie Galbraith is a PhD student in the Centre of Biodiversity and Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. She is supervised by Margaret Stanley, Jacqueline Beggs and Daryl Jones (Griffith University, Australia).

What’s the point of urban ecology?

April 23, 2015April 23, 2015 / aucklandecology / 7 Comments

Posted by Margaret Stanley @mc_stanley1

What’s the point of urban ecology? This is a question I get asked a lot. Many ecologists believe ‘real ecological research’ occurs outside of city boundaries, preferably the further the better from a city. While the focus of ecologists and conservationists is often on biodiversity outcomes within protected areas or in rural areas, the perceptions and values of city-dwellers disproportionately (in terms of numbers of votes!) influence decision-making around management of biodiversity outside cities. Therefore, the often limited experiences city-dwellers have with nature, such as seeing a tūi in their backyard, can greatly affect biodiversity outcomes. However, we also know that there is an increasing disconnect between people and nature as we become more urbanised. How many city-dwellers have visited a regional or national park in the last year? Reconnecting people with nature in the city not only benefits their mental and physical wellbeing, but can also have positive effects on how they value biodiversity and take action on conservation issues. The 2008 Erfurt Declaration also recognises the intrinsic value of urban ecosystems. Globally, urban areas can be hotspots for biodiversity – cities are often built in very fertile areas, and can be centres of evolution and adaptation.

Josie Galbraith’s project on the effects of backyard bird feeding on bird communities. Washing lines for hanging birds bags and deck furniture for banding and microchipping birds are a blessing for the urban researcher!

There are a range of exciting and interesting research questions to be asked about biodiversity in cities. While some drivers of change are unique to cities, most are just modified versions of what’s happening outside cities (e.g. habitat loss) or are agents of change originating from cities (e.g. pollution, invasive species). My lab group are tackling questions, such as whether people feeding birds in their backyards can restructure urban bird communities, how light pollution might influence ecosystem function (eg. pollination) and how robust connectivity is for bird-dispersed plants within fragmented urban landscapes.

Two of the most frustrating things about urban ecology are: firstly, you can’t escape people (more social scientists please!); and secondly, there are no large, homogenous landscapes in which to put untold replicates. Experiments are critical for untangling drivers and interactions, but conducting experiments in urban landscapes can be very challenging: the high levels of variability over short distances, negotiating access to sites from many landowners/householders, and the high risk of vandalism to equipment. Even the main health and safety fieldwork issues are unusual: domestic dogs and dubious people, rather than getting lost in the bush or being injured far from a hospital. But if it all comes together, the results can be great. Watch this space within the next week or two for PhD student Josie Galbraith’s PNAS paper, where we report on our 18-month bird feeding experiment in suburban Auckland.

Road ecology research often requires the use of an orange flashing light on your car! Esther Dale (L) and Dr Cheryl Krull (R) during Cheryl’s postdoc research on rodent behaviour around roads.

There’s also an unfortunate but realistic reason why urban ecology is attractive to ecologists. Science is getting more expensive, funding is declining, offshore islands and national parks are expensive to get students to. Urban ecology is a much better option in terms of science output/$ of funding. And then there’s the unexpected bonus of doing fieldwork in the city – the ability to order pizza for the cold, hungry field crew…

Pizza delivery to Josie Galbraith’s field sites

Dr Margaret Stanley is a Senior Lecturer in Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland and is the programme director of the Masters in Biosecurity and Conservation. Her interests in terrestrial community ecology are diverse (particularly in terms of taxa), but can be grouped into three main research strands: urban ecology; invasion ecology; and plant-animal interactions. The most interesting and challenging projects are where these three strands overlap!

Feeding our feathered friends

February 24, 2015April 22, 2015 / aucklandecology / Leave a comment

Posted by Jacqueline Beggs

New research by Josie Galbraith, Jacqueline Beggs, Darryl Jones, Ellery McNaughton, Cheryl Krull, and Margaret Stanley

PhD student Josie Galbraith measuring urban birds to assess their health status.

People love feeding wild birds, even in New Zealand where most urban birds are introduced species. More than 5 million loaves of bread, 13 million pieces of fruit and 5 million L of sugar water are fed to birds in six New Zealand cities each year. That is almost 3 loaves of bread per person! The food used is not usually at the expense of the household budget as most people are feeding scraps to birds.

As well as putting out food, people like to provide water baths and plant trees to encourage birds into their gardens. Those who live in Wellington (New Zealand’s capital) were least likely to feed birds, but if you owned a free-standing house or a dog you were more likely to provide food.

Introduced birds are probably the main beneficiaries of bread and seed in urban New Zealand since not many native birds found in urban areas are grain feeders. Potentially, this may increase populations of introduced birds at the expense of native birds.

Disease transmission from birds congregating at a feeding site was also identified as a risk. However, given the importance of ensuring urban dwellers connect with nature, we are certainly not arguing that

Silvereye are on of the few native birds in urban areas that eat bread.

people should stop feeding birds, but improving how they clean feeding stations and considering putting out food more suitable for native species would be a good idea.

Questionnaires were sent to 3000 households in Whangarei, Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Dunedin and Invercargill. The study achieved a 27.1% response rate, or 801 replies.

Read the published research online now at Biological Conservation http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.038

Jacqueline Beggs is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity, University of Auckland.

Media links:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/10644341/Kiwis-spend-dosh-on-bird-nosh

http://www.voxy.co.nz/lifestyle/backyard-bird-feeders-spend-millions-study/5/205292

http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=195803&fm=newsmain%2Cnrhl

http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/study-kiwis-love-feeding-birds-2014102208

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1410/S00443/backyard-bird-feeders-spend-millions.htm

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/nbnat/45026651-bird-feeding-habits-on-offer-in-study

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=72074

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/20154420/bird-feeders-in-nz-feed-more-than-5-million-loaves

Auckland Kereru Project

February 11, 2015February 11, 2015 / aucklandecology / Leave a comment

The Auckland Kereru Project: Following the movements and diets of urban kererū (NZ pigeon) in Auckland.

Joint Graduate School in Biodiversity and Biosecurity PhD candidate Alice Baranyovits is investigating how kererū move around fragmented landscapes and more specifically how they utilise the urban environment. In particular she is interested in their diet, particularly where and when they are eating introduced plants. In order to do this she needs your help!

There are two ways to contribute as a one-off; by recording your garden plants and/or by recording urban kererū sightings (although you can enter as many kererū sightings as you like).

If you would prefer to have a more continual involvement you can register to take part in the phenology study (recording when your plants fruit) or the quarterly kererū count or both!

To sign up, please visit the Auckland Kereru Project website