Contacts
Shoshana is a conservation ecologist doing her PhD on the reintroduction of bush stone-curlew (Burhinus grallarius; warabin or mulyara in Ngunnawal language) in south-eastern Australia. Bush stone-curlews used to be found across most of mainland Australia but have declined across their southern distribution. Shoshana is using predator-proof sanctuaries to re-establish protected populations of curlews in their former range to help bolster the metapopulation structure. She uses GPS telemetry to study their survival and establishment, and to ask detailed questions about their ecology. Shoshana also works for the CSIRO fitting GPS units to waterbirds in the Murray Darling basin, to help inform water policy and management. She has also trained a detection dog to aid retrieval of lost GPS devices in the field.
Research interests
- Ecology
- Conservation
- Birds
- Telemetry
- Translocation
- Field ecology
- Detection dogs
- Science communication
Evans, M.J., Pierson, J.C., Neaves, L.E., Gordon, I.J., Ross, C.E., Brockett, B., Rapley, S., Wilson, B.A., Smith, K.J., Andrewartha, T., Humphries, N. and Manning, A.D. (2023), Trends in animal translocation research. Ecography, 2023: e06528. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.06528
Evans, M. J., Gordon, I. J., Pierson, J. C., Neaves, L. E., Wilson, B. A., Brockett, B., Ross, C. E., Smith, K. J., Rapley, S., Andrewartha, T. A., Humphries, N. and Manning, A. D., 2022. Reintroduction biology and the IUCN Red List: The dominance of species of Least Concern in the peer-reviewed literature, Global Ecology and Conservation, 38: e02242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2022.e02242
Evans, M. J., Weeks, A. R., Scheele, B. C., Gordon, I. J., Neaves, L. E., Andrewartha, T. A., Brockett, B., Rapley, S., Smith, K. J., Wilson, B. A. and Manning, A. D., 2022b. Coexistence conservation: Reconciling threatened species and invasive predators through adaptive ecological and evolutionary approaches, Conservation Science and Practice, 4(7). 10.1111/csp2.12742
Rapley, S., Goh G. S. H., Rolfe, M., Howard-Bryan, C., Lum, S., & Nicotra, A. (2021). Petiole volume as a proxy for hydraulic conductance predicts leaf area but not relative growth rate in tropical flowering trees. Field Studies in Ecology, 3(1). Australian National University, Canberra.
Rapley, S. (2020). Spatial ecology informs reintroduction for warabin (Burhinus grallarius; bush stone-curlew). Honours Thesis, Australian National University.
Rapley, S., Bell, I., Bryant, C., Burke, H., Clerc-Hawke, A., Hazell Pickering, S., Lawler, K., & Rolfe, M. (2019). Assessing biomechanical durability of alpine and subalpine leaves via measuring bend and fracture attributes. Field Studies in Ecology, 2(1). Australian National University, Canberra.