Population ecology of the Australian White Ibis, Threskiornis molucca, in the urban environment

Smith, ACM

Population ecology of the Australian White Ibis, Threskiornis molucca, in the urban environment

Smith, ACM

Permalink

Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2009

Open Access

Copyright Clearance Process

Recently Added
In Progress
Open Access

This item is open access.

Adobe PDF

Download contents and abstractAdobe PDF (118.24 kB)

Adobe PDF

Download thesisAdobe PDF (2.21 MB)

View statistics

Full metadata record

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Smith, ACM
dc.date.accessioned	2012-06-18T06:13:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2012-12-15T03:53:45Z
dc.date.available	2012-06-18T06:13:00Z
dc.date.available	2012-12-15T03:53:45Z
dc.date.issued	2009
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/20414
dc.description	University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Science.
dc.description.abstract	The Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) has dramatically increased in many coastal urban environments, while it has decreased in large areas of its traditional environment range in inland Australia since the 1970s. Ibis are often viewed as pests in urban environments due to the social, economical and environmental problems they can cause. Current, management of ibis in the urban environment predominately focuses on restricting their breeding success, in order to reduce abundances. Management can be costly, labour intensive and limited in its success, due to a lack of detailed knowledge of the ecology of urban ibis. The focus of this thesis is to explore various ecological parameters of urban ibis to increase the effectiveness of their management. Three major breeding/roosting colonies of ibis were monitored weekly for a whole year (2005 to 2006). In addition, five major landfills for domestic waste were investigated for avian abundances and diversity. My main aims were to provide details on the reproductive biology, population dynamics, local and regional movements and the use of landfills by ibis. In comparison to non-urban ibis, urban ibis have a longer breeding period, smaller mean egg volumes and clutch sizes, but a larger range of clutch sizes. They also have a lower hatching success, but higher reproductive success and a higher mean number of fledglings per clutch. Each roosting/breeding and landfill site differed in their reproductive success and/or population dynamics. Ibis used multiple sites for breeding and feeding and were capable of moving over vast distances after they had fledged. The ability of ibis to obtain food from anthropogenic sources appears to be one of the key factors in the urban environment that allows them to survive and breed there. Management plans need to consider this and their decline in their traditional environments to be effective, without harming the overall survival of this native species.	en
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/20414/2/02Whole.pdf
dc.relation.replaces	http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1340
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/ppc
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject	Ecology.	en
dc.subject	Population.	en
dc.subject	Australian White Ibis.	en
dc.title	Population ecology of the Australian White Ibis, Threskiornis molucca, in the urban environment	en
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access

Abstract:

The Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) has dramatically increased in many coastal urban environments, while it has decreased in large areas of its traditional environment range in inland Australia since the 1970s. Ibis are often viewed as pests in urban environments due to the social, economical and environmental problems they can cause. Current, management of ibis in the urban environment predominately focuses on restricting their breeding success, in order to reduce abundances. Management can be costly, labour intensive and limited in its success, due to a lack of detailed knowledge of the ecology of urban ibis. The focus of this thesis is to explore various ecological parameters of urban ibis to increase the effectiveness of their management. Three major breeding/roosting colonies of ibis were monitored weekly for a whole year (2005 to 2006). In addition, five major landfills for domestic waste were investigated for avian abundances and diversity. My main aims were to provide details on the reproductive biology, population dynamics, local and regional movements and the use of landfills by ibis. In comparison to non-urban ibis, urban ibis have a longer breeding period, smaller mean egg volumes and clutch sizes, but a larger range of clutch sizes. They also have a lower hatching success, but higher reproductive success and a higher mean number of fledglings per clutch. Each roosting/breeding and landfill site differed in their reproductive success and/or population dynamics. Ibis used multiple sites for breeding and feeding and were capable of moving over vast distances after they had fledged. The ability of ibis to obtain food from anthropogenic sources appears to be one of the key factors in the urban environment that allows them to survive and breed there. Management plans need to consider this and their decline in their traditional environments to be effective, without harming the overall survival of this native species.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/20414