News location:

Canberra Today 20°/24° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Glowing geckos shed light on animal navigation

RESEARCHERS at The Australian National University have used glow-in-the-dark geckos to gain insight on the mysteries of animal navigation. Marbled gecko

The study reveals that the nocturnal Marbled geckos rely on certain cues to find their way and can benefit from easy and cost-effective changes in landscape management, such as leaving isolated trees and planning the direction of sown crops.

Lead researcher from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, Geoffrey Kay says the geckos can identify habitat at 40 metres away, but not 80 metres away, suggesting that a loss of trees would reduce the amount of habitat for many species and would reduce connectivity of already fragmented landscapes for some migrating species.

Kay says this discovery is important because land clearing and habitat fragmentation is the leading cause of biodiversity decline globally, and it continues to threaten Australian biodiversity.

“Large old scattered trees have been shown to have immense ecological, social and economic value. Our work also shows that they are useful as visual flagpoles for native fauna navigating across the countryside.

“Importantly, we’ve also discovered that movements between habitat patches are heavily influenced by the height of pasture, and the direction of sown crops in agricultural fields.

“By releasing geckos dusted with fluorescent powder into fields, and returning to track the glowing trails at night, we were able to map fine-scaled movements that have previously not been possible with traditional tracking techniques.”

Kay says the research also demonstrated the need for stricter regulations to prevent the loss of critical habitat elements, such as old scattered trees, in agricultural landscapes.

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews