By Colline Brassard and Trish Fleming. Dogs (Canis familiaris) are descendants of the grey wolf (Canis lupus). The earliest accepted dog remains date back to about 15,000 years ago. Although all dogs share this same ancestor, their life as human domesticates has led to considerable variation, and modern dogs are one of the most variable…
Tag: Predation
Bilbies’ burrow building takes a hit from feral cats
By Faith Chen. The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is an important ecosystem engineer. Their extensive burrows provide important shelter, foraging and hunting opportunities for a variety of other mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates (Hofstede & Dziminski 2017; Dawson et al. 2019). Bilbies were once widely distributed across the Australian continent but are now restricted to…
Cat bells for biodiversity
By Natasha Harrison. Australia’s birds, reptiles, and mammals are increasingly becoming at risk of extinction [1]. Many of these species inhabit urban areas where one of the major threats to their survival and persistence is predation from domestic cats. It is estimated that the average pet cat kills close to 200 wildlife prey species per…
Can we save flatback turtle nests from foxes?
By John-Michael Stuart. Murdoch University is part of a joint effort in the State’s north-west to save a population of vulnerable flatback turtles from predation by foxes (see story). Along with Curtin University and the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), we have been working with the pastoralist of the remote Mundabullangana Station. Mundabullangana…
Runways and fancy feet – tracking escape paths of marsupials
By Natasha Tay. Ever thought you’d spend two weeks in the bush giving bettongs rave party feet and putting them on a runway for science? I travelled to Arid Recovery in South Australia this past May to do exactly that. My PhD investigates anti-predator behaviour in marsupials, focussing on how anatomy affects their physical ability…
Fox predation of turtle nests
by Stuart Dawson. Turtles are good examples of r-strategists. They produce many young that experience high mortality (compared with K strategists, such as humans, which invest heavily in each individual offspring). Most people would know that many turtles are killed as hatchlings, but did you realise that they are often predated even before they even hatch?
The ‘Risky-Decoy’ hypothesis
by Bill Bateman & Trish Fleming. If an ecologist asks you if you are good at modelling you might think that they are referring to something mathematical, and start running in the opposite direction. But a simpler kind of modelling is often used by behavioural ecologists who are interested in predation. If you wanted to…
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