New research that will help us better understand the movements of birds and help evaluate the risk of susceptible species such as waterfowl bringing diseases such as avian influenza into the country is underway.

 

Dr David Roshier, an ecologist with Charles Sturt University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society, is heading the first research study of its kind into the movement of waterfowl and other species between our nearest northern neighbours and Australia.

 

“We still lack a fundamental understanding of some of these migration systems,” said Dr Roshier who is working in collaboration with Assoc Prof Robert Heinsohn from Australian National University and Dr Leo Joseph from the CSIROs Australian National Wildlife Collection.

 

“Australia sits at the bottom of the East Asia/ Australasian flyway [flight path of migratory birds] which is one of eight recognised flyways world-wide. It is probably the smallest in terms of bird numbers but it is also the least studied.”

 

The three year study, which began this year, has been funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, the Department of Environment and Heritage, Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia, and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.

 

“Some of the birds using this flyway are seasonal migrants that move directly from the archipelagos to the north of us down to Australia and back again,” said Dr Roshier. “Others are long-distance migrants such as shorebirds moving through the area from Siberia and elsewhere. And then there is a whole suite of other species, including ducks, which are predominantly Australian species but do have a distribution which extends into New Guinea and Indonesia. Certainly there are Grey Teal and Black Duck in New Guinea and as far west as Java but whether they move between the regions we don’t know.”

 

The project will take the researchers to the Fly River in the Western Province of New Guinea, the Torres Strait Islands, Cape York, the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Barkly Tableland, Kakadu, Darwin and Timor.

 

“We will be putting satellite transmitters on ducks in New Guinea to track their movements and collecting blood and feathers from birds at all sites for molecular analyses,” said Dr Roshier. “We are looking for population markers whether they be genetic or stable isotopes that inform us how populations are structured; what are the connections between northern populations in Australia and New Guinea and Indonesia.”

 

Dr Roshier said that the study, at a scientific level, would provide valuable information about issues related to the conservation of our biodiversity.

 

“And, at a community or social level, it helps us evaluate some of the risks associated with avian borne diseases, of which avian influenza or bird flu is of major concern at the moment,” he said. 

 

“It is a small part of evaluating the risk associated with the transport of exotic diseases by wild life into Australia. Australia has a lot of natural defences simply because of its isolation and there are no migratory waterfowl here. However we do have waterfowl, the group must susceptible to bird flu,  that have distributions that extend into that part of the world.