Featured people and sites

Hello! My name is Meena and I am a PhD researcher at The Australian National University, Canberra. I love and am captivated by the wonderful world of plants. In my undergraduate degree I received first-class honours in ecology, where I looked to see if our native Australian alpine plants were changing over time. I hope to continue working with and among plants and become a plant ecologist once I complete my PhD on ‘what makes plants rare’. Naturally rare species can become threatened due to changing conditions brought by climate change like extreme and frequent fires. Common species can be susceptible to becoming rare too. As Earth enters its sixth mass extinction event, a better understanding of the drivers of plant rarity and how they may be connected to the vulnerability of species facing extinction is critical for guiding effective conservation and management. In my pursuit to answer this question, I have been looking at how environmental processes may influence plant rarity.

Kentällä- In the field features a passionate bird researcher from Australia - Sho Rapley! "My name is Shoshana and I’m an ecologist based in Canberra, Australia. Growing up in New Zealand I had a lot of exposure to conservation and spent time in fenced conservation sanctuaries. I remember seeing Kaka - a large and boisterous endemic parrot - in Wellington, which had spilled over from Zealandia sanctuary into the suburbs. Experiencing first-hand the benefits of sanctuaries made me optimistic we could protect and restore nature. Currently, I’m researching warabin (bush stone-curlews, pictured) at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary. We’ve been reintroducing them here since 2014 after a 40 year absence, and I’m hopeful that one day we will be able to reintroduce species beyond the fence."

It is impressive what dedication and love for wildlife can accomplish, and just a wonderful example of this is our featured field biologist MiguelDavid De Leon. Our followers will remember our previous post about Miguel being the first to photograph a fledgling South Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher (Ceyx mindanensis Steere, 1890), but there is a lot more to this amazing story that deserves to be shared. This is a story that makes you feel good to know that there are people like Miguel out there, so please read on! “Wildlife and biodiversity is disappearing off the planet faster than we can study or discover it” says Miguel as I talk to him from his home on the south Philippine island of Mindanao. Mindanao happens to be a biodiversity hotspot and home to many endemic species, and perhaps many more that we do not yet know about. Being fully aware of the loss of biodiversity on the planet, Miguel has been on the front lines of recording what new diversity there is to be found. He and his colleagues in the Robert S. Kennedy Bird Conservancy have dedicated long hours to the photography and documenting of the behavior and life history of birds in the region. He is studying cryptic bird species and has found a bird and a mammal yet unidentified making them candidates for new species. He is publishing his work in scientific journals and correcting misconceptions about species and filling in the other information that we don’t yet know about. What is the diet of the South Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher? How do their fledglings behave? What is the nesting behavior of the Short-billed Brown-dove? Miguel and his colleagues know the answers to these questions from countless hours of observation from blinds that they build themselves from bamboo, palm fronds and banana leaves. Miguel’s work has recently jumped into headlines after the shot of the dwarf kingfisher melted hearts around the globe. The fledgling is now the poster child of his and the Conservancy’s work, and you might expect that this is a large research group behind all of this work. In fact, not one member of the Conservancy is a full time biologist. Instead this is a group of part-time naturalists and citizen scientists made up of pilots, an artist and even a military strategist that have dedicated their free time to documenting biodiversity. Miguel has had some training from his undergrad biology courses, but his day job is that of a vitreoretinal surgeon. One day, when he retires, Miguel says that he will dedicate all of his time to biology, but for now his work as an eye surgeon also has some great side benefits that many full time field biologists can only dream of. The Bukidnon region has a long history of being a difficult destination for scientists. In fact, when the first naturalists interested in orchids visited the region, they were threatened with death by the indigineous tribes and had to leave the Bukidnon forests unsurveyed. However, some of Miguel’s patients and household and farm staff are from the Bukidnon region, and through them he has gained their trust and the access to the forests there. He has been introduced to the rituals that must be done before entering the forest and knowing that a big part of trust is rooted in acknowledging the ways of locals he has offered a pig or chicken or tossed coins as part of the forest entering ritual. The result of Miguel’s forays into the Bukidnon forest is four scientific publications featuring 30 new species of orchids.

Exciting news from Kenya! As part of her PhD thesis, Hanna Rosti and colleagues have identified what look to be two mammal species that are new to science, the Taita mountain dwarf galago and the Taita tree hyrax. Hanna has spent a ton of time #inthefield to track down these nocturnal mammals from the environs of the University of Helsinki's Taita hills research station. Read more in Hanna's blog here: https://animalstaita.com/2020/02/12/taita-mountain-dwarf-galago-paragalago-sp/

Do elephants need their grandmothers? Our scientist #inthefield, Prof. Virpi Lummaa, will tell you that having a grandmother around gives an elephant calf a much better survival rate. Not only that, when grandmothers are close by, their daughters have more calves. Amazingly, this ‘grandmother effect’ is something that we as humans have in common with elephants, and shows the important part that grandmothers play in the rearing of offspring. Virpi’s research on humans and elephants has benefitted from the preindustrial church registers of Finland, to the records kept by forest elephant workers of Myanmar, allowing insight into human and elephant societies. India and Myanmar hold the largest wild populations of Asian elephants in the world, but conservation is necessary to ensure their future. Spending countless hours #inthefield in Myanmar has allowed Virpi and her team from the University of Turku and Myanmar Timber Enterprise to learn what can be done to improve animal health and welfare. In the coming weeks we will introduce you to the fieldwork and the people that are working to improve the lives of working elephants and in turn help conserve the wild populations. Be sure to follow the elephant research on Twitter @MyanmarElephant and explore the project's website: http://elephant-project.science/

Kentällä - In the field features the work of field biologists from around the world and today we welcome Australian ecologist Belinda Wilson to our spotlight. For her PhD work Belinda is investigating the reintroduction biology of the endangered eastern quoll, and as a volunteer she coordinates flying fox monitoring for the Australian Bat Society. Belinda recently won an award for her outreach efforts and you can easily see why: her Facebook page Belinda Wilson - Ecologist is definitely worth following! https://belindawilsonresearch.weebly.com/