The short presentation will be by Stuart Rae on “Broad-billed Sandpipers: information gained from data recorded with geolocators”.
Stuart has been studying Broad-billed Sandpipers in northern Norway for several years as part of a long-term study on arctic-breeding waders. The study has involved the use of geolocators and the first results from these will be described, giving details of the birds’ behaviour as well as migration routes and over-wintering areas.
The main presentation will be by Julian Reid from the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment and Society and is entitled “The A B G D of arid Australian bird communities, contrasting mulga tall shrublands and riparian woodlands.”
Julian worked with his CSIRO and Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory colleagues in the early 1990s on a large biological survey program of the greater MacDonnell Ranges region in central Australia. For his doctoral studies completed last year, Julian reanalysed the bird data gathered at 117 sites under the umbrella of diversity relationships. In his presentation he will focus on the contrasting patterns of community composition and turnover among three broad habitat types, namely riparian, tall mulga shrubland, and montane. They each support distinctive bird species and communities, and have unique diversity properties, whether relating to species richness (alpha), compositional turnover (beta), or the origins and broader distribution of component species (gamma diversity). Julian will briefly discuss the conservation implications of this study, noting that several rare species went undetected.