Oral Presentation Australian Society for Limnology Conference 2016

Waterbird recruitment in the Murray-Darling Basin: Responses to flooding, stressors and threats (#52)

Heather McGinness 1 , Richard Kingsford 2 , Veronica Doerr 1 , Ralph Mac Nally 3 , Kate Brandis 2
  1. CSIRO, Canberra, ACT, Australia
  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney
  3. University of Canberra, Canberra

Environmental watering events in Australia are frequently targeted at supporting waterbird breeding.  Whilst knowledge exists regarding key breeding locations in the Basin and the flows required to trigger and complete nesting events, there is limited knowledge about recruitment rates and drivers – particularly in terms of the relative influence of flow variables, habitat variables, pressures and threats.  Consequently it is difficult to model or predict population or management outcomes. The Waterbird Theme of the Murray-Darling Basin Environmental Water Knowledge and Research Project will begin to address these knowledge gaps through investigation of two main sets of questions:

  1. Where and what are the critical foraging habitats during and after breeding events that support recruitment? How might these be affected by water management and threats such as habitat change?
  2. What are critical nesting habitat characteristics we need to maintain and how do these affect recruitment? How might environmental flows, vegetation management and threats such as predation interact with nesting habitat characteristics to affect recruitment?

Here we describe our research rationale, methods and preliminary results stemming from a literature review and a pilot study conducted in 2015-16. We then outline our plans for the full research program.

This research will fill critical scientific knowledge gaps and will also produce information that will allow managers to better target water, vegetation and predator management actions to: maximise waterbird chick survival during flooding events; maximise ‘event readiness’ at nesting sites; and maximise juvenile and adult survival between flooding events.