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Introduction
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Publications
Publications (11)
Abstract Ecosystem engineers that modify the soil and ground‐layer properties exert a strong influence on vegetation communities in ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the interactions between animal engineers and vegetation is challenging when in the presence of large herbivores, as many vegetation communities are simultaneously affected by both e...
The creation of mechanically carved tree cavities to provide supplementary shelter for hollow-dependent wildlife is increasingly popular in conservation management programs. However, there is limited empirical evidence quantifying how the features of their design and broader placement within the landscape influence use by target fauna. In this stud...
Darwin argued that females’ “taste for the beautiful” drives the evolution of male extravagance,but sexual selection theory also predicts that extravagant ornaments can arise from sexual conflict and deception. The sensory trap hypothesis posits that elaborate sexual signals can evolve via antagonistic coevolution whereby one sex uses deceptive mim...
Ecosystem engineers physically modify their environment, thereby altering habitats for other organisms. Increasingly, ‘engineers’ are recognised as an important focus for conservation and ecological restoration because their actions affect a range of ecosystem processes and thereby influence how ecosystems function. The superb lyrebird Menura novae...
Reproductive suppression, whereby individuals decrease the reproductive output of conspecific rivals, is well-studied in mammals, but while it is suspected to be widespread in birds, evidence of this phenomenon remains rare in this class. Here we provide compelling evidence of reproductive suppression in the Superb Lyrebird ( Menura novaehollandie...
Landscape heterogeneity, from both natural and anthropogenic causes, fundamentally influence the distribution of species. Conservation management requires an understanding of how species respond to heterogeneity at different spatial scales and whether differences may occur between demographic components of a species population. We examined the spat...
The Upwey Corridor Biodiversity Project has seen substantial investment by agencies and in‐kind voluntary work by the community over a ten year period. Comparison of Habitat Hectare scores prior to the project and after ten years showed that significant improvement in ecological condition of weed‐degraded areas is possible given adequate investment...
Members of the Sherbrooke Lyrebird Survey Group have recorded single-egg clutches as being the norm for the Superb Lyrebird Menura novaehollandiae in Sherbrooke Forest, but occasionally there are two eggs present in a single nest. Here, we report the first record of a three-egg clutch for the Superb Lyrebird. On 20 August 2016, we discovered a lyre...
Nests provide essential ecological services to breeding birds, and the location and architectural characteristics of nests may vary to maximise reproductive success. We investigated variation in nest-characteristics within a breeding population of Superb Lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) in south-eastern Australia over 14 years. Lyrebird nests con...
All human cultures have music and dance [1, 2], and the two activities are so closely integrated that many languages use just one word to describe both [1, 3]. Recent research points to a deep cognitive connection between music and dance-like movements in humans [2, 4-6], fueling speculation that music and dance have coevolved [2, 7, 8] and prompti...
Projects
Projects (2)
To investigate cultural evolution in the elaborate audiovisual display of the superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae), a highly versatile avian vocal mimic.
The superb lyrebird provides a particularly powerful and tractable model system for investigating tempo and mode in cultural evolution in the wild, exhibiting extensive geographic variation in song structure, exceptional capacity for mimetic learning, and a complex multicomponent-multimodal display.
We are performing quantitative analyses of the cultural, genetic, and ecological drivers of the naturally observed display variation, and capitalize on a ‘natural experiment’ created by the translocation of lyrebirds to the extralimital island of Tasmania. In addition, we perform field-based social transmission experiments to test hypotheses for the cultural mechanisms underlying display evolution.
Details: https://www.lyrebirdlab.org/lyrebird-cultural-evolution.html
