News Release:
Ecologists show bats a boon to farmers
| Date 25/11/03 No 209/03 Delegates to next month's national ecological conference at the University of New England (UNE) will hear about a "war in the air" that is benefiting cotton farmers. This is how researchers at Narrabri describe the nightly manoeuvres of insect-eating bats and their prey above the cotton crops of north-west NSW. Their paper will report on the disruption caused by bats to the breeding behaviour of Helicoverpa moths, whose caterpillars are a major cotton pest. "The air above cotton crops is a war zone," the abstract reads. "Just the presence of bats and their ultrasonic sonar over cotton causes havoc and disturbance to moths that would otherwise busy themselves seeking nectar, mates, and cotton plants on which to lay their eggs." Another Narrabri-based report on the valuable service that bats provide to cotton farmers focuses on the need to maintain trees for roosting bats on cotton farms. In a related paper, UNE researchers will discuss the similar importance of trees as a habitat for insects that are beneficial to the cotton industry because they feed on other insects that are cotton pests. UNE will contribute a bat study of fundamental importance on the relationship between appropriate tree roosts, body-temperature control and insect-hunting behaviour in long-eared bats. In explaining this relationship, UNE's Christopher Turbill will emphasise the importance of maintaining trees for roosting bats on farms and in adjacent forested areas.
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Conservation of the habitat of another group of tree-dwelling mammal, the gliders, will be the subject of a paper by researchers from Deakin University in Victoria. They have shown that gliders cannot cross treeless gaps of more than 75 metres, and that they therefore disappear from landscapes where such gaps are created. More specifically, the sugar glider is the subject of another study of body-temperature control and feeding behaviour from UNE. The University's Professor Fritz Geiser, who is supervising both this project and the one on long-eared bats, is an international authority on thermoregulation in small mammals. This is just a small sample of more than 275 papers to be presented at the Ecological Society of Australia's annual conference to be held at UNE on December 8, 9 and 10. Topics for discussion will include agriculture and biodiversity; salinity; the "greenhouse effect" and revegetation; biological control; managing woodlands; conservation planning; biodiversity conservation thresholds; the ecological function of native vegetation; the reproductive ecology of native plants. The conference will open with a public symposium titled "Australia's Environmental Challenge: Ecological Science in Decision Making", involving four members of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. The symposium will be on Monday 8 December, from 8.30 am till noon, in UNE's Lazenby Hall. Media contact: Professor Peter Jarman, School of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources Management, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 2194 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 3049. |
