| sex ratio bias and shared paternity reduce individual fitness and population viability in a critically endangered parrot. | sex-biased mortality can lead to altered adult sex ratios (asrs), which may in turn lead to harassment and lower fitness of the rarer sex and changes in the mating system. female critically endangered swift parrots (lathamus discolor) suffer high predation while nesting due to an introduced mammalian predator, the sugar glider (petaurus breviceps). high predation on females is causing severe population decline alongside strongly biased adult sex ratios (≥73% male). our 6-year study showed that 5 ... | 2019 | 30511387 |
| swift declines predicted following mating system changes driven by an introduced predator. | in focus: heinsohn, r., olah, g., webb, m., peakall, r., & stojanovic, d. (2019). sex ratio bias and shared paternity reduce individual fitness and population viability in a critically endangered parrot. journal of animal ecology, 88, 502-510. while the effects of variation in the sex ratio of offspring have been thoroughly explored over the last century, the sex ratio of adults has received far less attention. a paper by heinsohn and colleagues in this issue shows that changes in the adult sex ... | 2019 | 30957877 |
| an empirical and mechanistic explanation of abundance-occupancy relationships for a critically endangered nomadic migrant. | the positive abundance-occupancy relationship (aor) is a pervasive pattern in macroecology. similarly, the association between occupancy (or probability of occurrence) and abundance is also usually assumed to be positive and in most cases constant. examples of aors for nomadic species with variable distributions are extremely rare. here we examined temporal and spatial trends in the aor over 7 years for a critically endangered nomadic migrant that relies on dynamic pulses in food availability to ... | 2019 | 30624105 |
| whole-genome sequences of two beak and feather disease viruses in the endangered swift parrot (lathamus discolor). | two complete genomes of beak and feather disease virus (bfdv) were characterized from lathamus discolor, the australian swift parrot. this is the first report of bfdv complete genome sequences in this host. the completed bfdv genomes consist of 1,984 nucleotides encoding two open reading frames with 99.7% pairwise nucleotide identity. | 2013 | 24285653 |
| a comparison of haemagglutination, haemagglutination inhibition and pcr for the detection of psittacine beak and feather disease virus infection and a comparison of isolates obtained from loriids. | psittacine beak and feather disease (pbfd) is recognized as a threat for endangered psittacine birds in australia, new zealand and south africa. several diagnostic methods for the detection of beak and feather disease virus (bfdv) infection have been developed but there are few studies comparing the relative merits or sensitivity and specificity of each diagnostic test. in this report, the results of pcr, haemagglutination (ha) and haemagglutination inhibition (hi) testing of diagnostic samples ... | 2005 | 16227226 |
| robotic ecology: tracking small dynamic animals with an autonomous aerial vehicle. | understanding animal movements that underpin ecosystem processes is fundamental to ecology. recent advances in animal tags have increased the ability to remotely locate larger species; however, this technology is not suitable for up to 70% of the world's bird and mammal species. the most widespread technique for tracking small animals is to manually locate low-power radio transmitters from the ground with handheld equipment. despite this labor-intensive technique being used for decades, efforts ... | 2018 | 33141732 |
| the importance of incorporating functional habitats into conservation planning for highly mobile species in dynamic systems. | the distribution of mobile species in dynamic systems can vary greatly over time and space. estimating their population size and geographic range can be problematic, with serious implications for conservation assessments. scarce data on mobile species and the resources they need can also limit the type of analytical approaches available to derive such estimates. here we quantify dynamic change in availability and use of key ecological resources required for breeding (i.e. food and nesting sites) ... | 2017 | 28130909 |
| exploiting the richest patch has a fitness pay-off for the migratory swift parrot. | 1. unlike philopatric migrants, the ecology of nomadic migrants is less well understood. this life-history strategy reflects responses to spatiotemporal variation in resource availability and the need to find resource rich patches to initiate breeding. the fitness consequences of movements between regions of patchily distributed resources can provide insight into ecology of all migrants and their responses to global change. 2. we link broad-scale data on spatiotemporal fluctuation in food availa ... | 2015 | 25973857 |