Wooden \u2018castles\u2019 that house families of endangered Western Spiny-tailed Skinks attract feral and native predators, as Curtin researchers use light-detection technology to re-create their habitat in a potential game-changer for global animal conservation.<\/p>\n
Researchers used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology \u2013 commonly used in mine sites – to create high-resolution scans of numerous log \u2018castles\u2019 to identify exactly what the lizards liked about particular log \u2018castles,\u2019 in order to replicate them and help with future habitat restoration.<\/p>\n
Lead researcher PhD student Holly Bradley from Curtin\u2019s School of Molecular and Life Sciences said this study showed that LiDAR was an accurate, effective tool that could be applied world-wide to help with animal conservation efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Western Spiny-tailed Skink is an unusual reptile as it has a large spiny tail for defence and they live together in family groups in wooden \u2018castles\u2019 made up of the remains of fallen trees, but they don\u2019t seem to like all \u2018castles\u2019 and only live in some,\u201d Ms Bradley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiDAR is a device that uses lasers to create a highly accurate 3D model and is most commonly attached to small planes or drones for the mining industry to map landform structures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time that LiDAR technology has been used in this way – to help characterise the microhabitat requirements of a particular threatened species. This will help us to identify areas and habitat structures that are important for protection, as well as showing us how to recreate the optimal wooden \u2018castles\u2019 during landscape restoration to help safeguard the future for the Western Spiny-tailed Skink.\u201d<\/p>\n
Research supervisor Associate Professor Bill Bateman said these skinks live in the arid Mid West of Western Australia, a region that presents numerous threats, including active mining operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe identified that crows and ravens target these log castles and even though they are native birds, they can become very abundant around mining landfill sites,\u201d Associate Professor Bateman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe skinks are also susceptible to harm from feral cats who hunt baby and adult skinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the ongoing survival of the endangered Western Spiny-tailed Skink, introduced predators must be managed and resources such as landfill sites around mining operations need to be managed to prevent native predators becoming too frequent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both papers, titled ‘Revealing microhabitat requirements of an endangered specialist lizard with LiDAR<\/em>‘ and ‘Predators in a mining landscape: targeting of a behaviourally unique, endangered lizard<\/em>‘, are available online here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The key to a successful psychology session could be by giving the patient control of running their own appointment, based off a new theory by a Curtin University professor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4410,"featured_media":12929,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,41,4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-19902","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-and-conservation","category-environment","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"experts":false,"post_components":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Skink-resized-1000x500.png","author_meta":{"display_name":"286333f"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/19902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/19902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19902"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=19902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}