The first presentation will be by Alison Russell-French on “The East Asian – Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) – a retrospective 25 years on.”
The EAAFP has been in existence now for 25 years. The 10th Meeting of the Partners took place in Hainan Island China in December 2018 where a review and strategic directions were on the agenda. What has the Partnership achieved over the 25 year period and where is it focusing its future efforts to conserve migratory waterbirds in this very challenging Flyway? Alison will be speaking in her capacity as Acting Chair, Australian Wader Study Group (AWSG) which is one of the Partners of the EAAFP (on behalf of BirdLife Australia).
The main presentation will be by Janet Gardner, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Research School of Biology at the ANU, on “How are Australian birds affected by climate change?”
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that climate change is having profound effects on natural populations of plants and animals. This talk will focus on how Australian birds are affected by our changing climate and look into the mechanisms that are driving change. Janet will describe how she has made novel use of the time-series available through museum collections and bird banding data from citizen science, with a particular focus on the ways climate change affects the size and shape of birds. This research aims to improve our understanding of species’ sensitivities to climate change and their capacity to cope with ongoing change. From this we can hope to develop improved management for species under pressure.