Intro
What two regions were being studied and compared?
Tropical North Queensland & Temperate Victoria
How long was each individual coastal region?
250km
On all beaches, scavengers only detected 45% of all fish carcasses.
True or false?
False.
Scavengers detected approx. 50% of all fish carcasses.
Fish carcasses deployed at tropical beaches were mostly scavenged by raptors.
True or false?
True.
There were 200 total deployments across the studied regions in this experiment.
True or False?
False.
Due to vandalism and theft of equipment, researchers were only able to retrieve data from 179 deployments.
What are some natural metrics measured that might affect scavengers in the coastal area?
- Dune width
- Distance to nearest rocky headland
In temperate Victoria, the probability of carcass removal was significantly higher during the ____ than during the ____.
Night, day
What was the conclusion that Huijber et al. came to about scavengers and ecosystem processes?
What is this study focused on?
This study is focused on patterns in species diversity and distribution that resulted from ecological processes along environmental gradients.
What major difference in mammalian scavengers existed between the two regions, and why could mammal abundance not be statistically compared like birds?
Red foxes are abundant in temperate region but completely absent in tropical region. They could not be statistically compared to birds because there was no quantitative abundance data available to run statistical tests.
What does figure 4 represent?
Did foxes, a non-native species in Australia, suppress raptors or occupy an empty niche?
Bird survey data between regions showed that raptors are significantly less abundant in Victoria compared with North Queensland. Therefore, it is suggested that foxes on temperate beaches may occupy a niche that isn't completely filled by raptors.