Pat Taggart
@tagsecology.bsky.social
Applied ecology. Wildlife. Threatened species. Evolution. Disease. Pest management. #Research #Science
cool new paper in @nature.com about moth migration, showing they use the stars to navigate up to the mountains in the summer 🧪🌍🐙 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night - Nature
Every spring, Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to navigate up to 1,000 km towards their alpine migratory goal.
nature.com
After conducting a PERMANOVA to formally test for differences in animal communities, what is the best/most appropriate way to identify and test what specific species are driving community differences? Desert salt lake photo for interest
Are there any good, free online toxin/poison databases that describe toxin/poison classifications, modes of action, etc?
We’re looking for another ecologist here in SA. Please share widely and check if out yourself. Happy to chat to anyone interested and suitably qualified. Come join the team! nrmjobs.com.au/jobs/2025/20...
Ecologist
Bush Heritage Australia - Arid Rangelands or Evelyn Downs Reserve, SA
nrmjobs.com.au
Funded PhD project with scholarship at UTas with Menna Jones menna.jones@utas.edu.au (March 2025) www.utas.edu.au/research/deg...
Removing rabbits to restore ecosystems
utas.edu.au
Diana Fisher@dianafisher1080.bsky.social · last yr.Funded PhD project with scholarship at UTas with Menna Jones menna.jones@utas.edu.au (March 2025) www.utas.edu.au/research/deg... projects/projects/biological-sciences/removing-rabbits-to-restore-ecosystems
Raising the dead ain’t so easy. Saving threatened species, that’s a thing we know how to do! theconversation.com/woolly-mice-...
Woolly mice are cute and impressive – but they won’t bring back mammoths or save endangered species
“De-extinction” research is a poor alternative to helping ‘pre-extinction’ animals still alive today.
theconversation.com
@tanyaplibersekmp.bsky.social has been taken to court over her potential failure to protect threatened species. It is good to see public scrutiny if whether the Minister is fulfilling her legal obligation to safeguard these species & could set a precedent for other species. shorturl.at/Se6AE
We’re looking for another ecologist here in SA. Please share widely and check if out yourself. Happy to chat to anyone interested and suitably qualified. Come join the team! nrmjobs.com.au/jobs/2025/20...
Ecologist
Bush Heritage Australia - Arid Rangelands or Evelyn Downs Reserve, SA
nrmjobs.com.au
Study participants awarded 43% more money to people with whom they shared trivial or random similarities than to people who were different, suggesting that interindividual comparison, not just groupism, underlies discrimination. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Managing multiple threats: Evaluating the efficacy of broad-scale introduced predator management in improving native mammal resilience to fire
Preventing further biodiversity loss requires understanding which processes threaten biodiversity and the effectiveness of management actions in mitig…
sciencedirect.com
For 7 years we have been studying how rat poisons affect native wildlife. Our initial work focussed on owls, then we found it in reptiles and today we have released our world first study showing it is killing Australia’s threatened quolls and the Tasmanian Devil. theconversation.com/lethal-secon...
Lethal second-generation rat poisons are killing endangered quolls and Tasmanian devils
Second generation rat poisons are so potent that they’re banned for home use in Europe and North America. But here, you can pick them up at Bunnings or Coles.
theconversation.com
Here’s every mangrove snake occurring in the NT. Found within about 30 minutes of each other during a recent slide around in the Darwin mangroves. -Myron richardsonii (Richardson's mangrove snake) -Fordonia leucobalia (white-bellied mangrove snake) -Cerberus australis (Australian Bockadam)
Another video in my series on applied time series and forecasting with the {mvgam} #rstats 📦. This one introduces State Space hierarchical GAMs and GPs for tackling multivariate series youtu.be/2POK_FVwCHk?...
Time series in R and Stan using the mvgam package: hierarchical GAMs
YouTube video by Nicholas Clark
youtu.be
Fresh publication alert! 🔥 "Breeding #fattaileddunnarts in #captivity: revised practices to minimise #stress whilst maintaining considerations of wild #biology". #glucocorticoids #endocrinology #captivemanagement #marsupials doi.org/10.1002/dvdy...
Does baiting feral cats, foxes and dingoes work? Read the full paper by @ceb-uwa.bsky.social DECRA Research Fellow Yong Zhi Foo, and colleagues @danielwanoble.bsky.social, @tagsecology.bsky.social here: doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...
Pat Taggart@tagsecology.bsky.social · 2y agoYong Foo, Dan Noble and I wrote a piece for @theconversation.com @aunz.theconversation.com Have a read. Poison baits were used on 1,400 feral cats, foxes and dingoes. We studied their fate to see what works theconversation.com/poison-baits...
Yep! "Baiting is an important and effective tool in reducing predator pressure on threatened species. But its efficacy – and the risk other animals could take the bait – means we have a responsibility to continually optimise its use..." theconversation.com/poison-baits...
Poison baits were used on 1,400 feral cats, foxes and dingoes. We studied their fate to see what works
Feral cats, foxes and dingoes are routinely baited to protect wildlife and livestock. But does it matter what kind of bait is used? Do cats ignore it?
theconversation.com
Feral cats, foxes and dingoes are routinely baited to protect wildlife and livestock. But does it matter what kind of bait is used? Do cats ignore it?
Poison baits were used on 1,400 feral cats, foxes and dingoes. We studied their fate to see what works
theconversation.com
Effectiveness of toxic baiting for the control of canines and felines www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Effectiveness of toxic baiting for the control of canines and felines
Toxic baiting has been widely adopted for the control of exotic canines and felines. However, high variability in findings make it difficult to gauge …
sciencedirect.com
Yong Foo, Dan Noble and I wrote a piece for @theconversation.com @aunz.theconversation.com Have a read. Poison baits were used on 1,400 feral cats, foxes and dingoes. We studied their fate to see what works theconversation.com/poison-baits...
Poison baits were used on 1,400 feral cats, foxes and dingoes. We studied their fate to see what works
Feral cats, foxes and dingoes are routinely baited to protect wildlife and livestock. But does it matter what kind of bait is used? Do cats ignore it?
theconversation.com
Ice core data reveal that ancient Roman mining caused widespread lead pollution across Europe. A study shows that airborne lead raised childhood blood levels, reducing IQ by 2-3 points, suggesting cognitive impacts on entire populations. In @science.org: www.science.org/content/arti...
New paper shows acute impacts of tags on diving seabirds. Birds with heavier tags do shorter & shallower dives with slower ascent rates, and increased resting time between dives. animalbiotelemetry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Acute impacts of biologging devices on the diving behaviour of Manx shearwaters - Animal Biotelemetry
Biologging studies rely on the assumption that equipped animal behaviours are representative of the ones displayed by unequipped individuals. Identifying any tagging effects is therefore necessary to ...
animalbiotelemetry.biomedcentral.com
I have a new article in @theconversation.com today. In it, I detail some observations I made (during my honours research 9 years ago 😳) of young-adult male koalas engaging in affiliative behaviours. Check it out. There's a cute little video too theconversation.com/i-was-shocke...
‘I was shocked’: a scientist tracking koalas films startling behaviour between young males
Everyone thought koalas were solitary creatures. But a new paper reveals there is more to the social lives of koalas than previously thought.
theconversation.com
Interesting new paper on inference with observational data in ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Causal Inference With Observational Data and Unobserved Confounding Variables
As ecology tackles progressively larger problems, we are moving beyond the scales at which randomised controlled experiments are feasible. Using observational data for causal inference raises the pro...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
We applied 22,500m2 of woody debris to overgrazed arid Australia, the first pic sums up the results pretty nicely!! It not only helped veg and soil recover but provided habitat for reptiles and mammals, details in Restoration Ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Given the passionate support for 'cell fencing'/'cluster fencing' by some—which in my view represents a further environmental and native animal welfare abomination—the sobering results of this study should help to inject some reality into the conversation. www.publish.csiro.au/RJ/justaccep...
An economic analysis of cell fencing in semi-arid rangelands
In Australia, livestock predation by dingoes (Canis familiaris) has contributed to what some livestock producers consider a dire situation for rangeland pastoralism, driving demand for cooperative reg...
publish.csiro.au
When it gets hot in the arid zone, or the available water is rank, kangaroos will often dig for water in sandy creek lines. Today I came across a patch of approx a dozen digs; only rank water was available close by.
New paper! A massive effort, led by Tom Bruce and Matthew Luskin onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Large‐scale and long‐term wildlife research and monitoring using camera traps: a continental synthesis
Camera traps are widely used in wildlife research and monitoring, so it is imperative to understand their strengths, limitations, and potential for increasing impact. We investigated a decade of use ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
