Fieldwork, Groote Eylandt, NT

Leaving Darwin, the propellers outside hummed loudly (reassuringly). We pressed our noses to the windows, looked out on the wild top coast of Australia. The fires lit by thousands of years of tradition. And then, we were there. Over the mines, into the red dirt.

the GEMCO manganese mine

On the deck with Jennifer and her niece; with Chopper; with MacBook Pro

We drove east to Umbakumba then headed into the bush on sandy tracks. We set up tents on top of a berm, feeling {relatively} safe from water-borne crocs and collected firewood from the beach. We watched a heavy moon pull itself up into the sky.

Picnic Beach, Groote Eylandt | Jaime and Eddie set out, bait, and mark quoll traps

Under Jaime's guidance, we set out traps for quolls, hoping to catch at least a few to obtain measurements and hair samples.

We caught 4. Plus a few bandicoots. It was good enough for Jaime to get her samples, and good enough for me - these were the first wild quolls I'd seen.

It was only a week ago we got back from Groote Eylandt. What a special place. Wild, and raw, and special. An island of contrasts, between a traditional culture and a modern mining industry. An island with a lot of crocodiles.

It was my first trip up, and Nelle came along. We met the Rangers and friends and family and Gavin and Kerry and the rest of the team and Alex-from-Stanford. We drank tea on the deck at the Ranger station, and packed up everything {but petrol} for a quoll-catching venture to the east side of the island. {Former labmate} Billy was appointed Ranger Coordinator. We learned our first Anindilyakwan words. We entertained Nelle, and learned the value of ABC for Kids downloads {and PhD students}.

A quoll curled up in its very own, custom-made pillowcase | fishing for dinner

We were almost as successful catching fish ... the ocean here teems with them {apparently} but we didn't have much luck. Three fish only made it into our bellies.

That's ok. We had plenty of patience ... and potatoes. 

- written byAmanda Niehaus

Death After Sex in the Australian Bush

Charleston wasn't just about pizza and beer, though with any scientific conference that's always a part of it ...

First up, we'll hear about Jaime's poster. Jaime did a 1st class honours degree in the lab, studying the way Rhinella marinus (cane toad) tadpoles respond to the presence of predators in their environment. But that's not what she was presenting here ... Jaime also recently was accepted into the PhD program at UQ to study quolls on Groote Eylandt, and she was keen to get the word out there about her new study system.

Now.

More about quolls and sex and the bush, as conveyed by Jaime and her co-authors on the poster, Robbie and Billy {with clarifications from me along the way}

image by Candice Bywater

Death after Sex in the Australian Bush: determinants of survival and reproduction in males of the world’s largest semelparous* mammal {*meaning they die after breeding!}

The northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) is a medium-sized (approx. 1 kg) predatory marsupial previously common across the entire top-end of Australia. This species is the largest known semelparous mammal in the world, which means mating is highly synchronous, males live for only one year, and males undergo total die-offs soon after the mating season.

Such population-wide male die-offs are presumably due to the physiological stress of procuring copulations and the intense fighting among males. A small proportion of females will survive to produce a second litter, but there are no documented cases of survival to a third breeding season. The young are born after a short gestation period and then carried in a rudimentary pouch for approximately 60-70 days.

Females will then leave young in dens while they forage, returning to suckle until young are independent at 4 – 5 months. Both sexes are solitary throughout the year with a home range averaging 35 ha for females and approximately 100 ha for males during the breeding season but varies greatly between individuals.

During {Jaime's} study, {she} will be investigating the morphological and performance determinants of both survival to reproductive-age and fecundity among males of this species on Groote Eylandt, an Indigenous-managed island off the coast of the Northern Territory. Northern quolls are still highly abundant on this island and this population offers a unique opportunity to understand the evolution of this extreme mating system and the role physical performance plays in the reproductive success of males.

We can't wait to hear more!

Biodiversity Research with Anindilyakwa Rangers

Our team has headed back up to Groote Eylandt (and I'm still here ... sigh ... ), so I thought I might take this opportunity to talk more about our collaboration with the Anindilyakwa people of the island. We have much to learn from each other - but more than that, collaboration between scientists and Indigenous peoples can be a rewarding and effective means of conserving the environment.

Aboriginal Australians have a powerful cultural connection to their environment. It sustains them, physically and spiritually. Conservation of biodiversity is innate, and information about the environment - the organisms that inhabit it, the seasonality of events - have been passed down via narratives and stories for thousands of years. Though this knowledge is more qualitative than quantitative, it represents a long-term picture of the environment that few, if any, scientific studies would provide.

Besides, the ability of Aboriginal trackers and rangers to navigate the bush is incomparable - which facilitates conservation-based studies of wildlife, including the northern quoll. On our trips to Groote Eylandt, our team trains the Indigenous Rangers in scientific methods of capturing, tagging, and 'processing' animals. We talk through research ideas, hypotheses, protocols, and analyses with them. And we absorb their beautiful culture.

We'll be sharing more about our current trip shortly, including photos of some very non-quoll-related fish, and a story about why Billy is currently sitting poolside at the resort, rather than working. (Ahem)

How to Catch and Process a Quoll*

*and no ... we're not making sausages out of them ...

So how do you catch a feisty little marsupial, that's nocturnal and ground-dwelling and generally doesn't like to be caught?
Ecologists typically use baited traps, but of a sort that aren't likely to harm the captured animal - like this Elliott Trap, which has a door that springs shut when the animal steps inside.

Just before dark, our intrepid quoll-catchers set out the traps (with goodies inside) and then return to camp to give the quolls a chance to find - and take - the bait.

When a quoll's been captured, we take it back to the lab to 'process' it. Which sounds really suss but actually just means that we measure them and add tracking and identification devices to them. This is so we can obtain information about the health and size of the quolls, and keep track of particular individuals over time.

After we've taken all the important measurements, it's time to 'mark' the animals. In this study, we mark with ear tags, pit tags (like microchips), and collars - which may seem like overkill, but actually allows us to collect different kinds of data.

Ear tags are like earrings that have a specific number on them, unique to the animal. This means that if we catch this quoll again, we can easily and quickly determine its identity. Ear tags, toe tags, and leg or flipper bands (depending on the animal of focus) are commonly-used by ecologists for this purpose.

Pit tags are the second line of identification ... they're inserted under the skin, and hold all the relevant information about the animal - just like the microchip that you can get for your dog or cat. The coolest thing about pit tags? You read them with a scanner.

(as in, "clean up on aisle 3 ... ")

And collars - they're for the purpose of tracking the animal, using either radio frequencies or GPS (depending on the type of collar). By tracking individuals, ecologists can learn more about how the animals interact with each other, how large their range is, and how much they move around. If you want to know more, we talked about tracking koalas here and here.

After all this, the quoll is released back into the wild ... where it is no longer the anonymous little carnivore it once was.

So now you know how to catch and process a quoll. (Or, for that matter, any animal of ecological interest). Please use your wisdom for good, not evil.

Thanks Gavin, Sean, Robbie, Billy and Bill for the great photos!