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Gumnut Naturalist
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18.01.2022 Happy new year! What animal species are on your 2021 wish list? Chads 2021 top 2: Spotted-tailed Quoll, Sloane's FrogletHappy new year! What animal species are on your 2021 wish list? Chads 2021 top 2: Spotted-tailed Quoll, Sloane's Froglet
16.01.2022 What do these two species have in common? They are both threatened and they both use wetlands as habitat. We are excited to announce another scientific article has been published from Chad Beranek's PhD thesis. This article highlights evidence that there are situations bell frogs (Litoria aurea) and large-footed myotis (Myotis macropus) can co-exist. To achieve mutual benefit the likely factors are: large wetlands that are Gambusia free and and with reduced coverage of eme...rgent vegetation (thick fringing veg is probably fine). The reasons for this are that the large-footed myotis needs extents of open water to forage in, where it can employ its unique foraging strategy to trawl for aquatic prey. This probably benefits the bell frog as open water leads to warmer temperatures and thus less chytrid. Gambusia presence doesn't seem to concern the Myotis, but this is a deal-breaker for the bell frog. Lastly, co-occurrence of these species in created wetlands are documented. Hence wetlands we created for the bell frog were beneficial as foraging grounds for Myotis. If you joined in on the surveys for Chads PhD during the beginning of summer, you probably got to experience frogging in 3A, where you would be catching frogs while Myotis were flying and trawling around you. It was an amazing thing to experience! Maybe the bell frog is a useful umbrella species? Essentially an aquatic version of the koala in that respect. Check out the article in the following links: https://www.researchgate.net//348601188_Preliminary_eviden https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/emr.12454 Images were provided by Jannco Kelk (for the Myotis image) and Jessie Campbell (for the bell frog image). Check out there instagrams: Jannico (https://www.instagram.com/jannicokelk/) Jessie (https://www.instagram.com/jesseswildlife/)
16.01.2022 A great day out to celebrate world wetland day in the Hawkesbury! Discussing the dynamics of wetlands, insight gleaned from 4 years of studying the green and golden bell frog at newly created wetlands, and observing the patterns of nature
13.01.2022 Finishing the year with exciting news to announce. Chad Beranek (the director of GN) has finished his PhD titled "Restoration Ecology of the Green and Golden Bell Frog". This thesis will be submitted for examination once university resumes after the Christmas break. The thesis consists of seven chapters, each forming a scientific publication, where the overarching theme is the application of restoration ecology scientific principles to amphibian conservation. The first chapte...r has recently been published and is available through either of the two following links: https://doi.org/10.3375/043.040.0409 https://www.researchgate.net//346549714_Wetland_Restoratio This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the wetland design that was implemented to enhance a bell frog populations through providing optimised habitat and features that mitigate threats such as the amphibian chytrid disease and introduced fish (primarily Gambusia). It details the natural history of the study site, the research and theory behind the design formulation and description of the parameters of the site. The growth in vegetation of the site is incredible (see the photos). As the vegetation established in the wetlands, they not only provided excellent habitat for bell frogs, but also for about 40 species of birds (including rare and threatened species e.g. painted snipe, little bittern and grass owl), 7 species of reptiles, and some mammals including the northern brown bandicoot and the threatened large-footed myotis. This design is a good starting point for bell frog restoration (and wetland restoration in general). It worked astoundingly (the population increased by a factor of 10 over two years!) but there is still room for improvement. This article is intended as an overview and more details about the dynamics of the site (what worked well, what didn't work well, how the bell frogs responded) will be provided in future posts as the relevant scientific articles are published. Overall, it is hoped that this design can pave the way for wetland creation across NSW where the bell frog current exists or used to exist, to re-establish their populations and reverse their decline.
08.01.2022 Donate your construction off-cuts to reptile conservation We are involved with many reptile conservation projects in 2021 and for each site we need robust methods for monitoring reptiles. A really good way to do this is with corrugated iron sheets and roof tiles. Essentially these objects gain and retain heat more than most other structures in typical forest habitat, hence reptiles will often seek these out as a refuge. This is why the local tip is a great place to find ...reptiles and also why lifting up tin sheets in the bush is not a good idea if you are snake-phobic! Please message Gumnut Naturalist if you have some off-cuts of corrugated iron and roof tiles you would like to donate to reptile conservation research. We are looking to use pieces of tin that are 1 x 1 m in area. On another note, please if you find a reptile monitoring station while you are strolling through the bush, please do not disturb it. Over-checking of reptile monitoring stations may result in the reptiles leaving the area, and hence ruining the data that would have been collected to help inform reptile conservation. If you would like to volunteer to help reptile station monitoring, please send us a message. See one of the images for an example of what a reptile monitoring station could possibly look like (sourced from a publication, link: https://www.publish.csiro.au/WR/WR17117). Please share this with fellow reptile enthusiasts and construction workers or anyone else who may have offcuts of corrugated iron and roof tiles that may be interested in donating. We are looking for offcuts in the Sydney and Newcastle regions.
