Journal article
Using weather radar to monitor the number, timing and directions of flying-foxes emerging from their roosts
J Meade, R van der Ree, PM Stepanian, DA Westcott, JA Welbergen
Scientific Reports | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2019
Open access
Abstract
Knowledge of species’ population trends is crucial when planning for conservation and management; however, this information can be difficult to obtain for extremely mobile species such as flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.; Chiroptera, Pteropodidae). In mainland Australia, flying-foxes are of particular management concern due their involvement in human-wildlife conflict, and their role as vectors of zoonotic diseases; and two species, the grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) and the spectacled flying-fox (P. conspicillatus), are currently threatened with extinction. Here we demonstrate that archival weather radar data over a period of ten years can be used to monitor a large colony of gr..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the hundreds of staff and volunteers who assisted with counts of grey-headed flying-foxes at Yarra Bend. We thank Djordje Mirkovic for calculating the radar cross section of a grey-headed flying-fox; Joshua Soderholm, Valentin Louf, Mark Curtis, Tom Kane, Susan Rennie, Alan Seed and Aurel Griesser from the Australian BOM for assisting with queries about the radar data and analysis; and Scott Collis and Zach Sherman for help with creating clutter maps. J.M. & J.W. were supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grant (DP170104272). P.S. was supported by the Plains Institute at the University of Oklahoma. D.A.W. was supported by the Australian, New South Wales and Queensland governments' National Flying-Fox Monitoring Program and the Queensland Government's Little-Red Flying-Fox Project.