Birds
Currently our bird research includes a long–term project on the population dynamics of Antarctic Adélie penguins (likely to provide early indications of the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems); understanding the impacts of pests and environmental factors on seabird populations and island biodiversity; and developing sustainable land management and biodiversity conservation strategies in New Zealand’s agricultural landscape through better understanding of the status and ecology of wildlife populations, primarily birds, in farmland areas .
Other related research focuses on reducing and managing threats to native birds from introduced pests (possums, stoats, ferrets, etc.). Past research covers work on mainland islands (kōkako and kiwi); the factors affecting the distribution and numbers of bellbirds in urban and heavily managed lowland rural areas (complements similar previous research on kererū, and also tūī, bellbirds and kererū in the Waikato); and the impact of magpies on native bird populations.