What's honours, you ask? Students complete a 9-month long research project under the guidance of an academic - they become part of a lab group, they learn the ups and downs of scientific research first-hand, and they (hopefully) learn a bit about their study system. It's a great opportunity for young scientists!
Ami just completed her honours on our favourite research subject - koalas. Want to learn a bit more about what she did?
(I'll assume you said yes)
Ami studied how urbanisation affects koalas. This is important work because southeastern Queensland has a population of koalas living in urban areas (including the Brisbane metro area). To protect these koalas, we have to understand more about how environmental characteristics affect their survival and movement patterns.
Specifically, Ami wanted to know what habitat characteristics were able to predict the presence or absence of koalas in urban Brisbane.
Not surprisingly, she found that the closer you get to the city centre, the larger that bushland areas had to be to contain koalas. Urban koalas tended to reside on private property, rather than public areas - an important finding, as it's on private property that you're more likely to find dogs ... a major cause of mortality for koalas.
Another important finding was that koalas tended to move across bare patches (including fields, lawns or roads) during the same time that human activity was highest, thus putting them at greater risk.
Based on her research, Ami suggests that conservation of urban koalas must focus on maintaining large bushland areas, along with better road planning and traffic management (to reduce koala fatality when they're crossing roads).
We'll talk more about Ami's research in greater depth in posts to come ... But for now, congrats to her on a study well done!
Written by Amanda @ Koala Ecology Group
