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Welcome to 

Fire Ecology and

Biodiversity


School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences | Faculty of Science

University of Melbourne

About us

Biotelemetry marches on: find out how to build your own GPS device

11/8/2018

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Click the image to watch a VIDEO showing how you can make your own GPS device step-by-step
Ever wanted to GPS-track an animal but couldn’t afford the gear?  Then our new paper – arising from Manuela Fisher’s PhD – is just what you need. 

We bought off-the-shelf GPS units, tinkered with them, and turned them into cost-effective animal trackers. Just the ticket for acquiring high resolution movement data at a fraction of the commercial rate. And – wait for it – the data get sent to your computer via the mobile phone network. Just sit back and count the fixes.

We put our trackers through their paces along a continuum from open urban areas to dense forest. Except for the odd failure, the trackers performed well under all conditions – even at the bottom of deep gullys under dense canopy! We hope that trackers like ours will help researchers collect more data on more individuals, and increase the quality of research outputs. Don’t you just love technology? Biotelemetry marches on!

Fischer, M., Parkins, K., Maizels, K., Sutherland, D.R., Allan, B.M., Coulson, G. & Di Stefano, J. (2018). Biotelemetry marches on: A cost-effective GPS device for monitoring terrestrial wildlife. PLoS ONE 13(7): e0199617. 


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Another PhD completion!  Congratulations to Kate Parkins!

24/4/2018

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Kate presented her PhD completion seminar last week and is a (possum) whisker away from submitting her thesis.  Her research focussed on edges, which are ecologically important environmental features that have been well researched in agricultural and urban landscapes but remain poorly understood in natural systems.

Fire is an agent of edge creation and a globally important driver of biome distribution and community composition, yet little is known about how fire edges affect ecological processes in flammable ecosystems.  While edge effects and faunal-fire responses have been well studied independently, how animals respond to fire edges remains poorly understood. 

Kate's thesis explores this knowledge gap focusing on the influence of fire edges on fauna, and discusses some methodological advances for ecological field studies.  Her study sites were in Victoria's beautiful Central Highlands where she invested enormous energy installing remote cameras, trapping bush rats and agile antechinus, and fitting pesky-but-cute mountain brushtail possums with GPS collars.  ​The possums in particular played very hard to get, but Kate's persistence paid off and she's currently putting the finishing touches on her analyses.

Congratulations Kate on your epic achievement!
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Congratulations to Manuela Fischer on her PhD completion!

8/4/2018

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Manuela gave her completion seminar on Friday and is moments away from submitting her thesis.  Her exciting project involved use of GPS data and experimental exclosures to investigate resource selection, road crossing behaviour and browsing impact of the abundant native swamp wallaby. Her study took place on Phillip Island, a landscape of natural and human-modified patches, dissected by roads. 

She found that wallabies modulate their selection of resources on a circadian basis to optimise the use of resources under anthropogenic disturbance. Although natural vegetation patches are likely to be used, patches of high anthropogenic disturbances are tolerated at night, when disturbances are less. She also showed that roads are avoided, especially during the day and that crossings are more likely when tree cover is high and water further away from the crossing location. Further, she demonstrated that in vegetation patches, wallabies suppress weed diversity, but do not influence native species diversity.

Her work has shed substantial light on the behaviour of Phillip Island's booming wallaby population.  Well done Manuela on your inspiring work!  
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Congratulations to Kirsten Langmaid on completing her Masters research project!

29/6/2017

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Kirsten worked with Kate in the Central Highlands to investigate the responses of Mountain Bobucks (Trichosurus cunninghami) to fire.  She measured the home range sizes of animals fitted with GPS collars, and examined the response of home range size to fire severity and vegetation diversity.

She found that home ranges were smaller in areas burnt by high-severity fire in 2009 than in long-unburnt areas.  Smaller home ranges reflect high quality habitat, and it's likely that regenerating acacia in burnt areas provides bobucks with an abundant food supply.  Within areas burnt by high-severity fire, there was a positive relationship between home range size and vegetation-type diversity, indicating that riparian vegetation is particularly resource-rich.

These results will help researchers and land mangers better understand the implications of changing fire regimes for bobuck populations.

Well done Kirsten, and thanks to Julio, Kate and Kirsten for the photos!
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Possum Magic in the Central Highlands

23/1/2017

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Kate and a team of volunteers have recently returned from several weeks of field work out in the forests of the Central Highlands, where they have been attempting to catch Mountain Brushtail Possums (Bobucks) as part of Kate’s PhD research.

This study aims to understand how fire affects resource use and movement patterns of the possums at sites burnt during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Kate is particularly keen to understand if this species alters its movement patterns and energy use between areas of differing burn severities.

For this project Kate has built her own GPS collars, which contain: a VHF for relocating the possums, a GPS to record horizontal movement patterns, an altimeter to measure changes in height, as well as a three-axis accelerometer to measure energy use. This device will enable us to look at resource selection and movement patterns in three-dimensions, across a range of different burn severities.

If you’d like to volunteer to come along on an upcoming field trip with Kate, please get in touch with her by email.
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Wimmera Biodiversity

15/9/2015

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Bronwyn recently travelled to Great Western to present her GPS fox tracking research at the 18th Wimmera Biodiversity Seminar.  It was a fascinating day, filled with bitterns, red gums, climate change and passionate people:

"Great Western? Do you know what’s happening with the trees out there?’ ask Lyn and Kathy at the office as I collect the uni car keys. ‘I heard they’re taking them all out, right along the highway. 400 year old redgums, just so the trucks don’t have to go round some bloody corner.’

I keep my eye out for stumps as I drive but just find trails of milk cartons, sheltering the roadside remnants of tomorrow. And strings of flags, marking off sections with trees, sections with drains, sections of paddock; at 110 km an hour it’s not clear whether they indicate the protected plants or the ones destined for removal."


Read more at Bronwyn's blog or listen to the ABC interview.
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Congratulations to Manuela Fischer on her PhD confirmation

14/6/2015

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One of Manuela's GPS-collared swamp wallabies returned to a Phillip Island trapping site to wish her well. This plucky female has crossed the 100-kph Rhyll-Newhaven Road six times in four days.

Manuela is studying how wallabies use space and move between different vegetation patches in human-modified and heterogeneous landscapes. She's also interested in human-wildlife interactions.
  
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Tracking swamp wallabies on Phillip Island

12/5/2015

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Manuela has started looking at human-wildlife interactions and movement of swamp wallabies on Phillip Island as part of her PhD research.  

So far, she’s caught 35 wallabies, 14 of which were suitable for equipping with GPS collars. She's particularly interested in how wallabies use space and move between different vegetation patches in human-modified and heterogeneous landscapes such as Phillip Island.

Please contact Manuela for more information on her PhD research.
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University of Melbourne
4 Water Street
Creswick
Victoria 3363

Phone +61 (0)3 5321 4300 or email us

Photos contributed by Holly Sitters, Bronwyn Hradsky, students of the Fire Ecology and Biodiversity Group, and remote cameras.
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