The wild regent honeyeater population is estimated to be 350-500 individuals. The species' vast range, small population size and nomadic movement patterns have hampered attempts to collect ecological data and inform conservation action. In an effort to prevent the imminent extinction of the species, this talk will discuss:

- Development of a new monitoring programme to locate breeding birds.

- Evaluation of undetected Allee effects in Australia's threatened birds

- Regent honeyeater contemporary breeding biology

- Targeted suppression of noisy miners at breeding sites

- Population genomics using museum specimens

This event is free and open to the public.

About the Speaker

Ross Crates is a member of the Difficult Bird Research Group. He studied ecology with a year in Australia at the University of East Anglia, UK. An exchange year in Wollongong sparked his passion for Australian ecology and conservation. After graduation, he worked as a research assistant at the Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University using passive transponders to study the social ecology of wild songbirds. He returned to Australia to commence his PhD in 2015. Ross has broad interests in ecology, conservation and evolutionary biology.