ORCID Profile
0000-0003-4624-9904
Current Organisation
University of Newcastle Australia
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Conservation and Biodiversity | Population Ecology | Terrestrial Ecology | Wildlife and Habitat Management | Psychology | Learning, Memory, Cognition And Language | Environmental Science and Management | Ecological Applications | Ecology And Evolution Not Elsewhere Classified | Invasive Species Ecology |
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Control of Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species at Regional or Larger Scales | Remnant Vegetation and Protected Conservation Areas in Forest and Woodlands Environments | Control of Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species in Urban and Industrial Environments | Behavioural and cognitive sciences | Natural Hazards in Forest and Woodlands Environments | Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity at Regional or Larger Scales | Forest and Woodlands Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity
Related Links
Publications
Individual differences in cognition and personality
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2017
The role of differential reinforcement in predator avoidance learning
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2003
DOI: 10.1016/S0376-6357(02)00169-9
Abstract: Little is known about how predator recognition develops under natural conditions. Predispositions to respond to some stimuli preferentially are likely to interact with the effects of experience. Convergent evidence from several studies suggests that predator-nai ve tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii) have some ability to respond to vertebrate predators differently from non-predators and that antipredator responses can be selectively enhanced by experience. Here, we examined the effects of differential reinforcement on responses to a model fox (Vulpes vulpes), cat (Felis catus) and conspecific wallaby. During training, tammars experienced paired presentations of a model fox and a simulated capture, as well as presentations of a wallaby and a cat alone. Training enhanced responses to the fox, relative to the conspecific wallaby, but acquired responses to the two predators did not differ, despite repeated, non-reinforced presentations of the cat. Results suggest that experience interacts with the wallabies' ability to perceive predators as a natural category.
From mechanisms to function: an integrated framework of animal innovation
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 19-03-2016
Abstract: Animal innovations range from the discovery of novel food types to the invention of completely novel behaviours. Innovations can give access to new opportunities, and thus enable innovating agents to invade and create novel niches. This in turn can pave the way for morphological adaptation and adaptive radiation. The mechanisms that make innovations possible are probably as erse as the innovations themselves. So too are their evolutionary consequences. Perhaps because of this ersity, we lack a unifying framework that links mechanism to function. We propose a framework for animal innovation that describes the interactions between mechanism, fitness benefit and evolutionary significance, and which suggests an expanded range of experimental approaches. In doing so, we split innovation into factors (components and phases) that can be manipulated systematically, and which can be investigated both experimentally and with correlational studies. We apply this framework to a selection of cases, showing how it helps us ask more precise questions and design more revealing experiments.
Innovative problem solving in birds: A key role of motor diversity
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2014
Social learning about places: observers may need to detect both social alarm and its cause to learn
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2010
The Relative Role of Knowledge and Empathy in Predicting Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behavior
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 12-04-2022
DOI: 10.3390/SU14084622
Abstract: Planet Earth is undergoing unprecedented levels of environmental degradation and destruction at a global scale. Incentivizing people to adopt behaviors that are compatible with a sustainable future will help address the current ecological crisis. However, it is first necessary to understand the psychological drivers of pro-environmental behavior. Here, we examined whether greater levels of environmental knowledge and empathy predicted higher levels of pro-environmental behavior in an Australian population s le. We aimed to advance our understanding of the psychological variables that motivate people to act in pro-environmental ways, while also advancing the ongoing debate amongst conservation scientists regarding the relative importance of fostering empathy. Correlational analyses revealed that objective, verifiable knowledge was a strong predictor of pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Empathy also correlated positively with pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, but with a dissociation with respect to its cognitive and affective components. Multivariate analyses revealed that knowledge was a stronger predictor of both pro-environmental attitudes and behavior after controlling for in idual variation in cognitive and affective empathy. This finding casts doubt on the claim by compassionate conservationists that fostering empathy is the key to solving the current environmental conservation crisis. Future research should aim to extend the present findings by testing whether a more exhaustive test of participants’ environmental knowledge and other measures of empathy, including empathic competencies and the recently developed Emotional and Cognitive Scale of the Human–Nature Relationship (ECS-HNR), yield the same dominance of knowledge over empathy.
Socially acquired predator avoidance: Is it just classical conditioning?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2008
DOI: 10.1016/J.BRAINRESBULL.2008.02.005
Abstract: Associative learning theories presume the existence of a general purpose learning process, the structure of which does not mirror the demands of any particular learning problem. In contrast, learning scientists working within an Evolutionary Biology tradition believe that learning processes have been shaped by ecological demands. One potential means of exploring how ecology may have modified properties of acquisition is to use associative learning theory as a framework within which to analyse a particular learning phenomenon. Recent work has used this approach to examine whether socially transmitted predator avoidance can be conceptualised as a classical conditioning process in which a novel predator stimulus acts as a conditioned stimulus (CS) and acquires control over an avoidance response after it has become associated with alarm signals of social companions, the unconditioned stimulus (US). I review here a series of studies examining the effect of CS/US presentation timing on the likelihood of acquisition. Results suggest that socially acquired predator avoidance may be less sensitive to forward relationships than traditional classical conditioning paradigms. I make the case that socially acquired predator avoidance is an exciting novel one-trial learning paradigm that could be studied along side fear conditioning. Comparisons between social and non-social learning of danger at both the behavioural and neural level may yield a better understanding of how ecology might shape properties and mechanisms of learning.
Radiotracking invasive spread
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-05-2020
Unraveling the key to innovative problem solving: a test of learning versus persistence
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2016
Will systematic reviews facilitate translational behavioral ecology? With a few conditions: a comment on Berger-Tal et al.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 14-11-2018
Erratum to: Animal cognition in a human-dominated world
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2017
Neophilia, innovation and learning in an urbanized world: a critical evaluation of mixed findings
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2017
Behavioral Responses of Invasive and Nuisance Vertebrates to Harvesting: A Mechanistic Framework
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 25-06-2020
Using a cognitive model to understand crowdsourced data from citizen scientists
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 24-02-2023
Abstract: Threatened species monitoring can produce enormous quantities of acoustic and visual recordings which need to be searched for animal detections. Coding the data is extremely time-consuming for humans and even though machine algorithms are emerging as a useful tool to tackle this daunting task, they too require large amounts of known detections for training. Citizen scientists are often recruited via crowd-sourcing to assist. However, the results of their coding can be difficult to interpret because citizen scientists lack comprehensive training and typically each code only a small fraction of the full data set. Competence may vary between citizen scientists, but without knowing the ground truth of the data set, it is difficult to identify which scientists are most competent. We used a quantitative cognitive model, cultural consensus theory, to analyze both empirical and simulated data from a crowdsourced analysis of audio recordings of Australian frogs. Several hundred citizen scientists were asked whether the calls of nine frog species were present on 1,260 brief audio recordings, though most only coded a small fraction of these recordings. Through modeling, characteristics of both the scientist cohort and the recordings were estimated, to identify trends in competence in the former and frog calls in the latter. We then compared the model's output to expert coding of the recordings and found agreement between the cohort's consensus and the expert evaluation. This finding adds to the evidence that crowdsourced analyses can be utilised to understand large-scale datasets, even when the ground truth of the dataset is unknown. The model-based analysis provides a promising tool to screen large data sets prior to investing expert time, and allocate resources more efficiently when recruiting citizen scientists or training classification algorithms.
Selective Learning in a Marsupial
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2002
Innovative problem solving in nonhuman animals: the effects of group size revisited
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2015
Bridging the Gap Between Cross-Taxon and Within-Species Analyses of Behavioral Innovations in Birds
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2016
Tracking Changing Environments: Innovators Are Fast, but Not Flexible Learners
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 31-12-2013
Reintroducing rewilding to restoration – Rejecting the search for novelty
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2019
Social learning about predators: a review and prospectus
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2004
DOI: 10.3758/BF03196014
Abstract: In comparison with social learning about food, social learning about predators has received little attention. Yet such research is of potential interest to students of animal cognition and conservation biologists. I summarize evidence for social learning about predators by fish, birds, eutherian mammals, and marsupials. I consider the proposal that this phenomenon is a case of S-S classical conditioning and suggest that evolution may have modified some of the properties of learning to accommodate for the requirements of learning socially about danger. I discuss some between-species differences in the properties of socially acquired predator avoidance and suggest that learning may be faster and more robust in species in which alarm behavior reliably predicts high predatory threat. Finally, I highlight how studies of socially acquired predator avoidance can inform the design of prerelease antipredator training programs for endangered species.
Cooperation Between Dead Reckoning (Path Integration) and External Position Cues
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 1998
DOI: 10.1017/S0373463397007583
Abstract: Dead reckoning (also called path integration) is the process by which a navigating organism derives its current position relative to an Earthbound reference point from its own locomotion. Dead reckoning requires the continuous estimation of changes in direction and location through self-generated signals and the computation of position on the basis of these signals. (i) Hymenopterous insects measure rotations and translations mainly with the help of optical references such as the Sun and translational visual flow. By contrast, mammals are able to estimate their position on the basis of purely ‘internal’ information that is, signals generated in the vestibular system by inertial forces, somatosensory feedback, and efference copies (copies of central commands that control the performance of rotations and translations). Obviously, the assessment of the angular and linear components of locomotion is much more precise if it is assisted by external references than if this is not the case. (ii) Only man-made dead reckoning systems yield precise position information through the twofold integration over time of inertial signals deriving from angular and linear acceleration. On the biological level, all species tested so far seem to rely on a simplified form of path ‘integration’: in certain test situations, arthropods and mammals (including humans) commit similar systematic errors. This suggests that species from unrelated taxa update position according to a similar algorithm.
Consumer and motor innovation in the common myna: the role of motivation and emotional responses
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2012
Cognition and personality: an analysis of an emerging field
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2015.01.012
Abstract: It is now well established that in iduals can differ consistently in their average levels of behaviour across different contexts. There have recently been calls to apply the same adaptive framework to interin idual differences in cognition. These calls have culminated in the suggestion that variation in personality and cognition should correlate. We suggest that both these appealing notions are conceptually and logistically problematic. We identify the first crucial step for establishing any cognition-personality relationship. This is to determine the degree to which cognitive abilities yield consistent task performance. We then suggest how to establish whether such consistency exists. Finally, we discuss why formulating predictions about how cognition might be related to personality is much more difficult than is currently realised.
Adjusting foraging strategies: a comparison of rural and urban common mynas (Acridotheres tristis)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-10-2016
DOI: 10.1007/S10071-016-1045-7
Abstract: Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and problem-solving. We compared the speed of learning in urban and rural female common mynas, Acridotheres tristis, using a standard visual discrimination task followed by a reversal learning phase. We also examined how quickly each bird progressed through different stages of learning, including s ling and acquisition within both initial and reversal learning, and persistence following reversal. Based on their reliance on very different food resources, we expected urban mynas to learn and reversal learn more quickly but to s le new contingencies for proportionately longer before learning them. When quantified from first presentation to criterion achievement, urban mynas took more 20-trial blocks to learn the initial discrimination, as well as the reversed contingency, than rural mynas. More detailed analyses at the level of stage revealed that this was because urban mynas explored the novel cue-outcome contingencies for longer, and despite transitioning faster through subsequent acquisition, remained overall slower than rural females. Our findings draw attention to fine adjustments in learning strategies in response to urbanization and caution against interpreting the speed to learn a task as a reflection of cognitive ability.
Revisiting the open-field test: what does it really tell us about animal personality?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2017
Indian mynahs, Acridotheres tristis, learn about dangerous places by observing the fate of others
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2009
How alien species use cognition to discover, handle, taste, and adopt novel foods
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2022
The potential utility of carotenoid-based coloration as a biomonitor of environmental change
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-07-2021
DOI: 10.1111/IBI.12866
The search for novelty continues for rewilding
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2019
Prey preferences of modern human hunter-gatherers
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2021
Personality and problem-solving in common mynas (Acridotheres tristis)
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.BEPROC.2016.09.013
Abstract: Animals show consistent in idual differences in behaviour across time and/or contexts. Recently, it has been suggested that proactive personality types might also exhibit fast cognitive styles. The speed with which in iduals s le environmental cues is one way in which correlations between personality and cognition might arise. Here, we measured a collection of behavioural traits (competitiveness, neophobia, neophilia, task-directed motivation and exploration) in common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) and measured their relationship with problem solving. We predicted that fast solving mynas would interact with (i.e. s le) the problem solving task at higher rates, but also be more competitive, less neophobic, more neophilic, and more exploratory. Mynas that were faster to solve a novel foraging problem were no more competitive around food and no more inclined to take risks. Unexpectedly, these fast-solving mynas had higher rates of interactions with the task, but also displayed lower levels of exploration. It is possible that a negative relation between problem solving and spatial exploration arose as a consequence of how inter-in idual variation in exploration was quantified. We discuss the need for greater consensus on how to measure exploratory behaviour before we can advance our understanding of relationships between cognition and personality more effectively.
It’s a trap! Invasive common mynas learn socially about control-related cues
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 28-05-2019
Social learning of antipredator behaviour in a marsupial
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2003
Social learning about predators: does timing matter?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2005
Mixed-species aggregations in birds: zenaida doves, Zenaida aurita, respond to the alarm calls of carib grackles, Quiscalus lugubris
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2005
Insular tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii) respond to visual but not acoustic cues from predators
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 09-2000
Learning anxiety in interactions with the outgroup: Towards a learning model of anxiety and stress in intergroup contact
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-2016
Abstract: While “knowledge learning” about the outgroup has been regarded as one of the key mechanisms for the contact–prejudice relation since the contact hypothesis’ first inception (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008), “learning,” more broadly, has rarely been used as an explanatory framework to investigate the consequences of intergroup contact. In this article, we lay the foundation of a learning model of anxiety and stress in ingroup–outgroup interactions. We distinguish between episodic and chronic anxiety responses to the outgroup and recommend investigations on the complexities of their dynamic interplay, as in iduals accumulate and dynamically integrate their experiences with the outgroup over time. Through a review of established and emerging psychophysiological and behavioral research of anxiety during ingroup–outgroup interactions, we identify evidence consistent with this dynamic outlook of intergroup contact effects. In this context, we also advance novel and untested predictions for future investigations onto the temporal integration of contact effects during an in idual’s lifespan.
Innovation and problem solving: A review of common mechanisms
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.BEPROC.2014.08.027
Abstract: Behavioural innovations have become central to our thinking about how animals adjust to changing environments. It is now well established that animals vary in their ability to innovate, but understanding why remains a challenge. This is because innovations are rare, so studying innovation requires alternative experimental assays that create opportunities for animals to express their ability to invent new behaviours, or use pre-existing ones in new contexts. Problem solving of extractive foraging tasks has been put forward as a suitable experimental assay. We review the rapidly expanding literature on problem solving of extractive foraging tasks in order to better understand to what extent the processes underpinning problem solving, and the factors influencing problem solving, are in line with those predicted, and found, to underpin and influence innovation in the wild. Our aim is to determine whether problem solving can be used as an experimental proxy of innovation. We find that in most respects, problem solving is determined by the same underpinning mechanisms, and is influenced by the same factors, as those predicted to underpin, and to influence, innovation. We conclude that problem solving is a valid experimental assay for studying innovation, propose a conceptual model of problem solving in which motor ersity plays a more central role than has been considered to date, and provide recommendations for future research using problem solving to investigate innovation. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Cognition in the wild.
Training Captive‐Bred or Translocated Animals to Avoid Predators
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-10-2000
Tasting novel foods and selecting nutrient content in a highly successful ecological invader, the common myna
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-09-2017
DOI: 10.1111/JAV.01456
Intergenerational Inequity: Stealing the Joy and Benefits of Nature From Our Children
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 08-02-2022
Social learning in Indian mynahs, Acridotheres tristis: the role of distress calls
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2008
Compassionate Conservation Clashes With Conservation Biology: Should Empathy, Compassion, and Deontological Moral Principles Drive Conservation Practice?
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 27-05-2020
Animal cognition in a human-dominated world
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-11-2016
Eat yourself sexy: how selective macronutrient intake influences the expression of a visual signal in common mynas
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 05-2021
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.241349
Abstract: Producing colored signals often requires consuming dietary carotenoid pigments. Evidence that food deprivation can reduce coloration, however, raises the question of whether other dietary nutrients contribute to signal coloration, and furthermore, whether in iduals can voluntarily select food combinations to achieve optimal coloration. We created a two-way factorial design to manipulate macronutrient and carotenoid access in common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) and measured eye patch coloration as a function of the food combinations in iduals selected. Mynas had access to either water or carotenoid-supplemented water and could either eat a standard captive diet or choose freely between three nutritionally defined pellets (protein, lipid or carbohydrate). Mynas supplemented with both carotenoids and macronutrient pellets had higher color scores than control birds. Male coloration tended to respond more to nutritional manipulation than females, with color scores improving in macronutrient- and carotenoid-supplemented in iduals compared with controls. All mynas consuming carotenoids had higher levels of plasma carotenoids, but only males showed a significant increase by the end of the experiment. Dietary carotenoids and macronutrient intake consumed in combination tended to increase plasma carotenoid concentrations the most. These results demonstrate for the first time that consuming specific combinations of macronutrients along with carotenoids contributes to optimizing a colorful signal, and point to sex-specific nutritional strategies. Our findings improve our knowledge of how diet choices affect signal expression and, by extension, how nutritionally impoverished diets, such as those consumed by birds in cities, might affect sexual selection processes and, ultimately, population dynamics.
Global patterns of accumulation and partitioning of metals in halophytic saltmarsh taxa: A phylogenetic comparative approach
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2021
A large-scale automated radio telemetry network for monitoring movements of terrestrial wildlife in Australia
Publisher: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.7882/AZ.2019.026
Abstract: Technologies for remotely observing animal movements have advanced rapidly in the past decade. In recent years, Australia has invested in an Integrated Marine Ocean Tracking (IMOS) system, a land ecosystem observatory (TERN), and an Australian Acoustic Observatory (A2O), but has not established movement tracking systems for in idual terrestrial animals across land and along coastlines. Here, we make the case that the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, an open-source, rapidly expanding cooperative automated radio-tracking global network (Motus, motus.org ) provides an unprecedented opportunity to build an affordable and proven infrastructure that will boost wildlife biology research and connect Australian researchers domestically and with international wildlife research. We briefly describe the system conceptually and technologically, then present the unique strengths of Motus, how Motus can complement and expand existing and emerging animal tracking systems, and how the Motus framework provides a much-needed central repository and impetus for archiving and sharing animal telemetry data. We propose ways to overcome the unique challenges posed by Australia’s ecological attributes and the size of its scientific community. Open source, inherently cooperative and flexible, Motus provides a unique opportunity to leverage in idual research effort into a larger collaborative achievement, thereby expanding the scale and scope of in idual projects, while maximising the outcomes of scant research and conservation funding.
Bird damage management in vineyards: Comparing efficacy of a bird psychology-incorporated unmanned aerial vehicle system with netting and visual scaring
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2020
The role of motor diversity in foraging innovations: A cross-species comparison in urban birds
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 18-11-2016
Accumulation and distribution of metal(loid)s in the halophytic saltmarsh shrub, Austral seablite, Suaeda australis in New South Wales, Australia
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2021
Persistence associated with extractive foraging explains variation in innovation in Darwin’s finches
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 28-10-2023
Investigating responses to control: a comparison of common myna behaviour across areas of high and low trapping pressure
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-07-2018
The paradox of invasion in birds: competitive superiority or ecological opportunism?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-12-2011
DOI: 10.1007/S00442-011-2203-X
Abstract: Why can alien species succeed in environments to which they have had no opportunity to adapt and even become more abundant than many native species? Ecological theory suggests two main possible answers for this paradox: competitive superiority of exotic species over native species and opportunistic use of ecological opportunities derived from human activities. We tested these hypotheses in birds combining field observations and experiments along gradients of urbanization in New South Wales (Australia). Five exotic species attained densities in the study area comparable to those of the most abundant native species, and hence provided a case for the invasion paradox. The success of these alien birds was not primarily associated with a competitive superiority over native species: the most successful invaders were smaller and less aggressive than their main native competitors, and were generally excluded from artificially created food patches where competition was high. More importantly, exotic birds were primarily restricted to urban environments, where the ersity and abundance of native species were low. This finding agrees with previous studies and indicates that exotic and native species rarely interact in nature. Observations and experiments in the field revealed that the few native species that exploit the most urbanized environments tended to be opportunistic foragers, adaptations that should facilitate survival in places where disturbances by humans are frequent and natural vegetation has been replaced by man-made structures. Successful invaders also shared these features, suggesting that their success is not a paradox but can be explained by their capacity to exploit ecological opportunities that most native species rarely use.
Olfactory predator recognition: wallabies may have to learn to be wary
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-2002
Temporal Limitations on Social Learning of Novel Predators by Indian Mynahs, Acridotheres tristis
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-01-2009
Erratum to: Adjusting foraging strategies: a comparison of rural and urban common mynas (Acridotheres tristis)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2017
A call to scale up biodiversity monitoring from idiosyncratic, small-scale programmes to coordinated, comprehensive and continuous monitoring across large scales
Publisher: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales
Date: 03-2022
DOI: 10.7882/AZ.2022.004
Abstract: Conservation managers cannot manage what they don’t know about, yet our existing bio ersity monitoring is idiosyncratic and small in scale. One of Australia’s commitments to the Convention for Biological Diversity in 2015 was the creation of a national bio ersity monitoring programme. This has not yet occurred despite the urgent need to monitor common and threatened species, as highlighted by the challenges of determining the bio ersity impacts of the Black Summer fires of 2019/20. In light of improvements to automation, miniaturisation and powering devices, the world urgently needs to scale-up bio ersity monitoring to become coordinated, comprehensive and continuous across large scales. We propose the BIOMON project that could achieve this where in idual sensor nodes use machine learning models to identify bio ersity via sound or photos onboard. This could be coupled with abiotic data on temperature and humidity, plus factors such as bushfire smoke. Nodes would be set within networks that transmit the results back to a central cloud repository where robust analyses are conducted and provided free to the public (along with the raw data). Network arrays could be set up across entire continents to measure the change in bio ersity. No one has achieved this yet, and significant challenges remain associated with training the algorithms, low power cellular network coverage, sensor power versus memory trade-offs, and sensor network placement. Much work is still needed to achieve these goals however we are living in the 21st Century and such lofty goals cannot be achieved unless we start working towards them.
Learning specificity in acquired predator recognition
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2001
Deconstructing compassionate conservation.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-07-2019
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.13366
Abstract: Compassionate conservation focuses on 4 tenets: first, do no harm in iduals matter inclusivity of in idual animals and peaceful coexistence between humans and animals. Recently, compassionate conservation has been promoted as an alternative to conventional conservation philosophy. We believe ex les presented by compassionate conservationists are deliberately or arbitrarily chosen to focus on mammals inherently not compassionate and offer ineffective conservation solutions. Compassionate conservation arbitrarily focuses on charismatic species, notably large predators and megaherbivores. The philosophy is not compassionate when it leaves invasive predators in the environment to cause harm to vastly more in iduals of native species or uses the fear of harm by apex predators to terrorize mesopredators. Hindering the control of exotic species (megafauna, predators) in situ will not improve the conservation condition of the majority of bio ersity. The positions taken by so-called compassionate conservationists on particular species and on conservation actions could be extended to hinder other forms of conservation, including translocations, conservation fencing, and fertility control. Animal welfare is incredibly important to conservation, but ironically compassionate conservation does not offer the best welfare outcomes to animals and is often ineffective in achieving conservation goals. Consequently, compassionate conservation may threaten public and governmental support for conservation because of the limited understanding of conservation problems by the general public.
Alien vs. Predator: Impacts of Invasive Species and Native Predators on Urban Nest Box Use by Native Birds
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 30-05-2023
DOI: 10.3390/ANI13111807
Abstract: Many bird species in Australia require tree hollows for breeding. However, assessing the benefits of urban nest boxes to native birds requires frequent monitoring that allows to assess nesting success. To better understand the benefits of nest boxes for native birds, we examined the impact of local habitat characteristics, invasive species (common myna, Acridotheres tristis), and native mammalian predators on urban nest box use and nesting success of native birds. We installed 216 nest boxes across nine locations in southeastern Australia (S.E. Queensland and northern New South Wales) in both long-invaded sites (invaded before 1970) and more recently invaded sites (after 1990). We monitored all boxes weekly over two breeding seasons. We recorded seven bird species and three mammal species using the nest boxes. Weekly box occupancy by all species averaged 8% of all boxes, with the species most frequently recorded in the nest boxes being the common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), a native cavity user and nest predator. We recorded 137 nesting attempts in the boxes across all bird species. The most frequent nesting species were the invasive alien common mynas (72 nesting attempts). We recorded an average nesting failure rate of 53.3% for all bird species. We did not record any common mynas evicting other nesting birds, and found that several native species used the same box after the common myna completed its nesting. We recorded native possums in 92% of the boxes, and possum occupancy of boxes per site was negatively correlated with bird nesting success (p = 0.021). These results suggest that when boxes are accessible to invasive species and native predators, they are unlikely to significantly improve nesting opportunities for native birds. To ensure efficient use of limited conservation resources, nest boxes should be designed to target species of high conservation importance and limit other species of both predators and competitors.
Detrimental effects of urbanization on the diet, health, and signal coloration of an ecologically successful alien bird
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2021
To innovate or not: contrasting effects of social groupings on safe and risky foraging in Indian mynahs
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2013
Inference by exclusion in the red‐tailed black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii)
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-2019
Abstract: Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When designed appropriately, tests of this ability can reveal choices that cannot be explained by associative processes. Over the past decade, exclusion reasoning has been explored in several non-human taxonomic groups, including birds, mainly in Corvids and Parrots. To increase our understanding of the taxonomic distribution of exclusion reasoning and, therefore, its evolution, we investigated exclusion performances in red-tailed black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii), an Australian relative of the Goffin cockatoo (Cacatua goffini), using a food-finding task. Cockatoos were required to find a food item hidden in 1 of the 2 experimenter's hands. Following training sessions in which they reliably selected the closed baited hand they had just been shown open, each in idual was tested on 4 different conditions. Critical to demonstrating exclusion reasoning was the condition in which they were shown the empty hand and then offered a choice of both closed hands. The performance of all birds was above chance on all experimental conditions but not on an olfactory and/or cuing control condition. The results suggest that the birds might be able to infer by exclusion, although an explanation based on rule learning cannot be excluded. This first experiment in red-tailed black cockatoo highlights the potential of this species as a model to study avian cognition and paves the pathway for future investigations.
Two speed invasion: assisted and intrinsic dispersal of common mynas over 150 years of colonization
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-11-2018
DOI: 10.1111/JBI.13473
Ratcheting up tool innovation in Goffin's cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana): The effect of contextually diverse prior experience
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-12-2022
DOI: 10.1111/ETH.13351
Abstract: The ability to gain information from one situation, acquire new skills and/or perfect existing ones, and subsequently apply them to a new situation is a key element in behavioural flexibility and a hallmark of innovation. A flexible agent is expected to store these skills and apply them to contexts different from that in which learning occurred. Goffin's cockatoos ( Cacatua goffiniana ) are highly innovative parrots renowned for their problem‐solving and tool‐using skills and are thus excellent candidates to study this phenomenon. We hypothesized that birds allowed to use a tool in a larger variety of contingencies would acquire a broader expertise in handling it, facilitating its transfer to new tasks. In our study, we compared the performance of two groups of captive Goffin's cockatoos ( N = 13): A test group received more erse learning and motor experiences on multiple applications of a hook‐type tool, while a control group received intensive, total trial‐matched, experience with a single application of the same tool. Then, both groups were tested on two novel tasks to determine whether experience with the tool in multiple contexts would facilitate performance during transfer. While both groups transferred to both novel tasks, group differences in performance were apparent, particularly in the second transfer task, where test birds achieved a higher success rate and reached criteria within fewer trials than control birds. These results provide support for the prediction that experiencing a erse range of contingencies with a tool appears to allow birds to acquire generalizable knowledge and transferrable skills to tackle an untrained problem more efficiently. In contrast, intensive experience with the tool in a single context might have made control birds less flexible and more fixated on previously learned tool‐dependent instances.
Learning from watching alarmed demonstrators: does the cause of alarm matter?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2011
Innovative problem solving in birds: A cross-species comparison of two highly successful passerines
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2015
Noisy neighbours and myna problems: Interaction webs and aggression around tree hollows in urban habitats
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-07-2020
Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 19-03-2016
Abstract: Innovation and creativity are key defining features of human societies. As we face the global challenges of the twenty-first century, they are also facets upon which we must become increasingly reliant. But what makes Homo sapiens so innovative and where does our high innovation propensity come from? Comparative research on innovativeness in non-human animals allows us to peer back through evolutionary time and investigate the ecological factors that drove the evolution of innovativeness, whereas experimental research identifies and manipulates underpinning creative processes. In commenting on the present theme issue, I highlight the controversies that have typified this research field and show how a paradigmatic shift in our thinking about innovativeness will contribute to resolving these tensions. In the past decade, innovativeness has been considered by many as a trait, a direct product of cognition, and a direct target of selection. The evidence I review here suggests that innovativeness will be hereon viewed as one component, or even an emergent property of a larger array of traits, which have evolved to deal with environmental variation. I illustrate how research should capitalize on taxonomic ersity to unravel the full range of psychological processes that underpin innovativeness in non-human animals.
Solving Foraging Problems: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Perspectives on the Role of Cognition
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 22-06-2017
Exploring or Avoiding Novel Food Resources? The Novelty Conflict in an Invasive Bird
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 18-05-2011
Are cognitive abilities under selection by female choice? A comment on Chen et al. (2019)
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2020
The population density and trap-revealed home range of short-eared possums (
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 22-06-2022
DOI: 10.1071/AM21051
Abstract: Investigating how the population density of a species changes over time is an integral step in determining whether that species is stable or needs assistance from conservation managers. The short-eared possum (Trichosurus caninus) is a species that has been poorly studied with only one previous population density estimate. Short-eared possums were live-trapped between August 2020 and January 2021 in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, to estimate their current density using a spatially explicit capture–recapture (SECR) model. The average density of short-eared possums was 0.46 possums/ha (95% CI: 0.32–0.66) in temperate rainforest and 0.13 possums/ha (95% CI: 0.06–0.28) in wet sclerophyll forest. No in iduals were caught in dry sclerophyll forest. Trap-based home ranges were estimated to be 12.5 ha (95% CI: 8–19) for males and 5.5 ha (95% CI: 3–11) for females. This study provides a reference for determining trends in short-eared possum population density within the Northern Tablelands in the future. Adequate conservation of temperate rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest habitat is important to the conservation of the species.
Tissue structure contributes to the production of a coloured skin display in the Common Myna
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 28-10-2020
Abstract: Conspicuous coloured displays from ultraviolet to bright red have been documented in many species throughout the animal kingdom. These colours often occur as sexual signals and can be incorporated into different types of integuments (e.g. scales, feathers, skin). Two main mechanisms are known to produce coloured integuments: pigmentation and tissue structure. Although pigmental and structural coloration are separate mechanisms and can occur independently, some coloured displays might emerge from a combination of both. Here, we demonstrate, using biochemical, optical and morphological methodologies, that the yellow coloration of the skin located around the eye of Common (Indian) Mynas ( Acridotheres tristis) is produced by both light-reflecting nanostructures and light-absorbing carotenoid pigments. Our analysis confirms that nanostructured collagen in the avian dermis work in combination with carotenoid pigments to produce vivid integumentary colours. Identifying the mechanisms behind the production of a coloured signal provides a basis for predicting how a signal’s function might be influenced by environmental factors such as fledgling nutrition.
Are innovative species ecological generalists? A test in North American birds
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 18-08-2011
Invading New Environments: A Mechanistic Framework Linking Motor Diversity and Cognition to Establishment Success
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 30-09-2016
Psychological warfare in vineyard: Using drones and bird psychology to control bird damage to wine grapes
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2019
Does trapping catch sociable, exploratory and innovative mynas preferentially? No, but perhaps less fearful ones
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2022
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