ARCUE

Tracking the elusive Brush-tailed Phascogale

Julia — Thu, 16 May 2013 05:06:18 +0000

ARCUE, in collaboration with VicRoads, are undertaking a study of the road-crossing behaviour and habitat use of Brush-tailed Phascogales in the Watson’s Creek area (near the Sugarloaf Reservoir between Hurstbridge and Yarra Glen, NE of Melbourne). Brush-tailed Phascogales are small (approximately 200g, and about the size of a rat), arboreal, carnivorous marsupials from the Dasyuridae family (which includes the Tasmanian Devil and quolls).

Brush-tailed Phascogale photo: Tom Hodgson

Phascogales nest in tree hollows during the day and forage for small vertebrates, insects and nectar at night. We have fitted small radio-collars to six Phascogales and are currently undertaking radio-tracking at night to monitor their movements.

Sunshine Diuris Structured Decision Making (SDM) workshop – saving an orchid from extinction

dave — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:29:21 +0000

Experts were gathered at the School of Botany, University of Melbourne, to participate in a 2-day SDM workshop in April 2013 in relation to Diuris fragrantissima, an endangered orchid restricted only to Sunshine in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and to Altona with reintroductions. The workshop was facilitated by Joslin Moore and Rodney van der Ree of ARCUE, assisted by Lee Harrison. The purpose of the workshop was to assist the Department of Sustainability and Environment (now combined with the Department of Primary Industries) to decide “How to allocate management and research effort over the next nine years to ensure the endangered orchid, does not become extinct in the wild.”

Participants included experts from the Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI), the Arthur Rylah Institute of Environmental Research (the biodiversity research base for DEPI), the Australasian Native Orchid Society, a private orchid expert and a contractor on the Diuris fragrantissima recovery team.

The workshop was very well received and participants wished to obtain more information about the SDM process for future reference. A second workshop with more experts is likely to be required to analyse the problem to the depth desired by DEPI.

Congratulations to Briony Norton, recent PhD student of ARCUE/University of Melbourne, on new job as a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield, UK!

dave — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:05:48 +0000

Our congratulations to Briony Norton, who finished her PhD at ARCUE and the University of Melbourne just last year – she has now moved to the UK to start work as a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield, in the area of urban ecology and ecosystem services.

Briony’s position is one of six postdoctoral positions of the consortium research team (two are at each of Sheffield University, Cranfield University and Exeter University), using a major grant awarded from the UK’s NERC (National Environment Research Council) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability programme to investigate the role of biodiversity in the provision of ecosystem services in urban environments. She will be mostly working on measuring invertebrate biodiversity in urban green space fragments and some regulating services.

For more information on the project, click here.

Briony and ARCUE will be keeping up contact and continue sharing ideas and information on the urban ecology world, and we wish her all the best with her new job and settling in to life in a new country.

“Saving Australia’s wetlands from tenacious willows” – the Bogong High Plains, Alpine National Park

dave — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 02:42:11 +0000

An interview on ABC’s Radio National with Dr Joslin Moore from the National Environmental Research Program’s Environmental Decisions Hub and ARCUE (Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne) explains the most appropriate way, at present, to deal with invading non-native willows in important bog areas such as the Bogong High Plains (in Victoria’s Alpine National Park).

The new strategy calls for an exclusive focus on eradicating willows within the threatened bog areas. The research looked at the uncertainties present in willow management and devised a modelling program with projections for different management strategies. The research was carried out in collaboration with Parks Victoria and other land managers in the region and will inform the development of an Alpine Bog Recovery Plan.

ABC interview (30 January 2013)

Media release

Research article “Combining structured decision making and value-of-information analyses to identify robust management strategies” by Joslin L. Moore and Michael C. Runge, published in Conservation Biology

“Mysterious poles make road crossing easier for high flying mammals”

dave — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:36:56 +0000

An article by Kylie Soanes on The Conversation website explains what’s been happening with road ecology research at the Hume Highway in northeastern Victoria. Following on from positive results of research on animals using experimental rope bridges and ‘glider poles’ to cross roads, Kylie has been monitoring use of the glider poles in the centre median and roadsides by squirrel gliders, with the help of motion-triggered cameras (some fantastic pictures in the article!). The gliders have been using the poles more and more to help them cross the road safely.

See the full article here

Biodiversity and the City- public forum

dave — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 05:00:14 +0000

ARCUE and the City of Melbourne hosted a Public Open Forum on “Biodiversity and the City” in early December 2012. The forum attracted over 200 members of the general public who came to the Melbourne Town Hall to hear a number of speakers talking about a range of issues and opportunities related to this topic. Each speaker gave a short presentation, and then participated in a Panel Discussion, followed by questions from the audience. Further details regarding this event can be found by following this link.

New paper: Socioeconomic drivers of the distribution of urban vegetation

dave — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:49:46 +0000

We have a new paper in press this week in Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, titled Drivers of diversity and tree cover in gardens, parks and streetscapes in an Australian city. While many overseas (USA and South Africa) studies show that income drives the distribution of vegetation, our study of Ballarat shows that eduction level rather than income drives tree cover, and socioeconomics are not important drivers of species diversity in gardens, parks and streetscapes. This highlights that different patterns can occur in different cities – while the urban LTERs in the USA (Phoenix and Baltimore) have produced a fantastic body of research, it is important that other studies are conducted in cities with less extreme physical and social environments.

ICLEI urban ecology symposium announced

dave — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:54:33 +0000

via ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability:

14 – 17 June 2012, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

The 3rd International Urban Research Symposium at the ICLEI World Congress 2012 will bring together researchers from around the globe who focus on urban sustainability, sustainability cities, eco-cities and sustainable communities.

PROPOSALS are invited! Researchers are invited to submit their abstracts for proposals. Abstracts will be accepted until 15 April and notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 1 May.

Download the Research symposium proposal form and send it to urban.research@iclei.org

Don’t miss this chance. Visit the 3rd International Urban Research Symposium for more information.

Managing our nocturnal neighbours – public forum

dave — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:30:09 +0000

A special public forum exploring the interactions between people and bats in a rapidly urbanising world will be held on April 11th at the University of Melbourne as part of the 15th Australasian Bat Society Conference.

This forum is for:
• Government environmental & biodiversity officers
• Ecological consultants, arborists, landscape planners
• Educators and students of environmental sciences
• Friends and naturalists groups
And anyone else interested in learning about bats and their management in the urban environment.

Hear expert presentations and join in the discussion on strategies to manage both microbat and flying-fox populations in urbanising landscapes. A range of key issues including urban planning, on ground management, tree pruning and community
education to be explored.

Please visit the Australasian Bat Society website for more information on the forum, including registration.

ARCUE Scientists Close Hume Highway

dave — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:41:31 +0000

On a Saturday in June of last year, traffic on the busy Hume Highway near Benalla was diverted for an unusual reason. The first of three rope bridges and three ‘glider poles’ were being installed to provide a means for squirrel gliders, possums and other native animals to pass safely across the road. The bridge and poles, the first of their kind in Victoria, were the culmination of a three-year research program involving researchers from the ARCUE, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and VicRoads.