The short presentation “Coevolution in action: defences against brood parasitism in new and old hosts of the Eastern Koel”, will be given by Virginia Abernathy, a Ph D student at the Research School of Biology, ANU.
The Red Wattlebird has been a host of the brood-parasitic Eastern Koel for about 30 years in Sydney and only about 7 years in Canberra. Host switching by a brood parasite is very rare, and knowing the time of the switch allows us to measure how quickly hosts can evolve defences against brood parasitism. I conducted experiments at nests of new and old hosts and took measurements of eggs and nestlings to determine if hosts of the koel have evolved defences and if the koel has evolved mimicry of eggs or nestlings.
Leo Joseph from the CSIRO will give the main presentation entitled ”News from the Front: An Update on Bird Research at the Australian National Wildlife Collection (ANWC) and Around the World”.
Since he last spoke to COG, there have been many interesting developments in our understanding of relationships among the world’s birds generally and bird research at the ANWC has been progressing on a few fronts too. The talk will walk gently through examples of all of this. Globally, the publication on one day last December of 28 papers resulting from a genome-level study of the world’s birds made a very big splash. It was a red-letter day in the history of studying bird biology. The ANWC has continued to chip away at some thorny taxonomic problems in Australian birds and Leo will give some examples of how we are slowly but, he thinks, surely reaching the “higher hanging taxonomic fruit” of Australian birds. The Chestnut Quail-thrush is an example of where they think they now have a solid case to recognize two species not just one, whereas in the White-eared Honeyeater things are looking interesting but they wouldn’t advocate a change yet. They are also getting into some interesting areas related to natural selection in birds. The humble Eastern Yellow Robin is a star in this area. The ANWC has been working in the savannahs of Papua New Guinea and that promises to open up some interesting work. Finally, they are taking their first steps into the world of trying to use genomes to understand adaptation in birds. For that, the ANWC is using Australian finches and the different climates in which they live.