Establishment and development of a seabird colony : long-term trends in phenology, breeding success, recruitment, breeding density and demography

Few studies document long-term colony-level metrics from colony establishment to maturity (equilibrium) and few test predictions of general models of colony development. We describe long-term trends in a colony of Australasian Gannets (Morus serrator) which has been monitored from an early stage in its development. The colony at Pope’s Eye, within Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia was established in 1984 on an artificial structure and the first nest count (25 nests) was conducted in the same year. The colony was then studied for 15 of 19 years between 1988 and 2006–2007. During the study, 2,516 eggs were recorded, resulting in 1,694 chicks hatching (67 % of eggs), of which 1,310 (77 % of those hatched) fledged. At least 184 (14 %) of fledged offspring returned to Pope’s Eye as breeding adults. Since establishment, the number and density of nests increased (number of nests increased 8.8 % annually), with density increasing at varying rates in different areas of the colony. Early recruitment involved birds from a nearby colony, but within 5 years post establishment the first natal recruits were breeding at Pope’s Eye and thereafter natal recruitment was the main source of new breeding adults (totalling 81.4 % of all recruits). Age of recruitment varied throughout the study, though not systematically, and there was no difference between the sexes. The pattern of rapid initial growth is typical of patterns reported for other seabird colonies. However, as the colony (and birds within it) aged, there was no increase in breeding success and egg laying did not become earlier, as was expected from general models of colony development.

Ensuring implementation success : how should coach injury prevention education be improved if we want coaches to deliver safety programmes during training sessions?

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their teams adopt appropriate safety practices. However, the extent to which the coaches undertake this role will depend upon their attitudes about injury prevention, their perceptions of what the other coaches usually do and their own beliefs about how much control they have in delivering such programmes. Fifty-one junior netball coaches were surveyed about incorporating the teaching of correct (safe) landing technique during their delivery of training sessions to junior players. Overall, >94% of coaches had strongly positive attitudes towards teaching correct landing technique and >80% had strongly positive perceptions of their own control over delivering such programmes. Coaches’ ratings of social norms relating to what others think about teaching safe landing were more positive (>94%) than those relating to what others actually do (63–74%). In conclusion, the junior coaches were generally receptive towards delivering safe landing training programmes in the training sessions they led. Future coach education could include role modelling by prominent coaches so that more community-level coaches are aware that this is a behaviour that many coaches can, and do, engage in.

Influencing student retention and success : a qualitative assessment of library use by distance education students from low socio-economic backgrounds

Poster presentation

I would’ve been so overwhelmed...: the importance of TAFE in supporting success for low SES students in HE

The Federal Government Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program includes a renewed push to redress the persistent under-representation of students from low socio-economic status backgrounds in higher education in Australia. The discipline of Social Work at Deakin University has been successful in attracting a wide range of students into the Bachelor program and is committed to giving students the best chance of success. This paper presents findings from qualitative research aimed at building two-way bridges between The Gordon (formerly The Gordon Institute of TAFE) and Deakin University to widen access and to support and retain students. The research presented here illuminates the experiences of students who commenced university following studies at TAFE, as well as the multiple, complex and intersecting factors impacting on this particular cohort’s educational opportunity. Our findings suggest that the TAFE pathway functions as an equity mechanism in our particular study site. Further, findings regarding students’ support needs underpin our argument that universities must do more to meet their responsibilities towards students.

Critical factors to the success of alliances in Australia

Governments in Australia face the challenge of meeting the growing demand for new infrastructure, which can be delivered more quickly in an increasingly complex environment. Alliance Contracting has been introduced to overcome some of the challenges by, aligning the incentives of the partners, clearly defining their rights and responsibilities, and providing the means for resolving disputes when they arise. The purpose of this research was to explore the critical success factors of Alliance Contracting in order to understand the roles of the various terms and conditions and how they fit together to create a relationship-based contract. A qualitative technique of semi-structured in-depth interviews was used to gather primary data in response to the research questions. The research aimed to develop an in-depth understanding of Alliance Contracting. The results show that the key contributor to the success or failure of Alliances is whether all the partners benefit equitably from the venture. Analysis of the data indicates that, in general, trusting attitudes/behaviour is perceived to be the most important critical success factor for Alliance Contracting in the broader construction industry. The second most popular critical success factor was shared and aligned goals. The third issue was the evidence of open behaviour, and the final issue was the presence of shared knowledge. The implication of this research is that there are several key factors that were necessary preconditions for successful Alliances.

Optimizing survey effort for burrow-nesting seabirds

Regular monitoring of seabird populations is necessary to improve our understanding of their responses to environmental change and inform conservation management. However, given the difficulty in accessing remote breeding sites and the limited resources typically available to land managers, conducting regular, extensive surveys of seabird populations is often not feasible. Our objective was to determine the minimum survey effort required to obtain accurate and precise population estimates of Short-tailed Shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris) and Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor), two abundant burrowing seabird species in southeastern Australia, by comparing bootstrapped means and confidence intervals under different sampling regimes on four islands. We found that, in many cases, survey effort (the proportion of transects and quadrats along transects surveyed) could be reduced. For Short-tailed Shearwaters, reducing the number of transects resulted in a maximum difference of 15% between the means at full survey effort and two levels of reduced survey effort. Means differed by <3% when we halved the number of quadrats. For Little Penguins, reducing the number of transects and quadrats by 50% resulted in differences of 7-40% and 4-34%, respectively, between the full and reduced survey effort means. Confidence intervals generally increased with decreasing survey effort for both species. Differences in required survey effort between the two species in our study may have been due to differences in burrow distribution on islands, with Short-tailed Shearwater burrows generally uniformly distributed on each island and Little Penguin burrows typically occurring in patches. These would be influenced by island-specific characteristics in concert with habitat preferences, population size, and seasonal variation in seabird abundance. Stratified sampling did not increase survey accuracy and simulations showed that large reductions in survey effort could be made under a pseudo-random sampling regime, with mean abundance estimates similar at most levels of survey effort. For both species, reducing the proportion of pseudo-random quadrats to 50% and 25% of the full survey effort produced confidence intervals of 12% and 21%, respectively, of the maximum, whereas a survey effort of 10% produced confidence intervals of up to 36% of the maximum for both species. A pseudo-random sampling regime would maximize survey efficiency because considerably fewer quadrats would be required and allow development of more efficient sampling protocols and regimes.

Home-range, diet and breeding of a Powerful Owl Ninox strenua in East Gippsland, Victoria

Between 2004 and 2008 the diet and breeding success of a pair of Powerful Owls Ninox strenua were studied near Lakes Entrance, Victoria. In early November 2006 the adult female Powerful Owl was captured and radio-tracked for a period of 7.5 months. During this time the Owl's location was recorded on 111 occasions, including 65 nocturnal locations over 29 nights. Her home-range was calculated as 1589 ha using the Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) method, or 871 ha based on the 95% Adaptive Kernel method. The area of forested habitat within the MCP home-range was 896 ha (the remainder representing cleared land). Her activity was centred primarily on the nesting gully where two dependent juveniles roosted, but several long-distance foraging expeditions (including roosting) that occurred more than 2.5 km from the juveniles were recorded. Arboreal mammals and birds dominated the Owls' diet. Low prey availability is suggested as being responsible for the single successful breeding event recorded in four nesting seasons.

“People’s law” and restorative justice: the success of circle sentencing in New South Wales

Informal sentencing procedures in remote Indigenous communities of Australia have been occurring for some time, but it was in the late 1990s that formalization of the practice began in urban areas with the advent of Indigenous sentencing and circle courts. These circle courts emerged primarily to address the over-representation and incarceration of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system. The first Indigenous urban court was assembled in Port Adelaide, South Australia in June 1999 and was named the Nunga Court. Courts emerging since in other states are based on the Nunga Court model, although they have been adapted to suit local conditions. The practice of circle sentencing was introduced in New South Wales (NSW) in Nowra in February 2002.

Detecting female precise natal philopatry in green turtles using assignment methods

It is well established that sea turtles return to natal rookeries to mate and lay their eggs, and that individual females are faithful to particular nesting sites within the rookery. Less certain is whether females are precisely returning to their natal beach. Attempts to demonstrate such precise natal philopatry with genetic data have had mixed success. Here we focused on the green turtles of three nesting sites in the Ascension Island rookery, separated by 5–15 km. Our approach differed from previous work in two key areas. First, we used male microsatellite data (five loci) reconstructed from samples collected from their offspring (N = 17) in addition to data for samples taken directly from females (N = 139). Second, we employed assignment methods in addition to the more traditional F-statistics. No significant genetic structure could be demonstrated with FST. However, when average assignment probabilities of females were examined, those for nesting populations in which they were sampled were indeed significantly higher than their probabilities for other populations (Mann–Whitney U-test: P < 0.001). Further evidence was provided by a significant result for the mAIC test (P < 0.001), supporting greater natal philopatry for females compared with males. The results suggest that female natal site fidelity was not sufficient for significant genetic differentiation among the nesting populations within the rookery, but detectable with assignment tests.