Project description
Many iconic birds of Australia are threatened by human-made changes in their environment, including artificial light, small obstacles such as fences, or noise pollution. This human-made "sensory pollution" is an increasing conservation concern because it can affect a bird's ability to navigate its environment. However, it is difficult to get data of how a threatened species senses its environment because they are often rare and elusive. In these projects, students will use a virtual-based "workaround solution" for inferring the sensory capacities of key Australian birds (such as the Plains Wanderer, Petrels, or Mallee Fowl). For this, they will measure 3D reconstructions of micro-computed tomography scans of museum specimens to assess the sensory capacities of species or groups of birds of particular conservation concern. For example, a previous project showed that the critically endangered Night Parrot likely is not good at seeing fences in the dark. We have a few species we are interested in, but are open to requests from students.
Co-supervisors
Aubrey Keirnan
Further information
This paper, based on data collection from a third year project, is a good example of what will be done.
Assumed knowledge
Basic understanding of ecology and/or evolution. Most crucially, the analyses will be done by adapting existing R code so a willingness to learn the basics of R is required (but prior knowledge is not).
Note: You need to register interest in projects from different supervisors (not a number of projects with the one supervisor).
You must also contact each supervisor directly to discuss both the project details and your suitability to undertake the project.