Research - Ken Sanderson, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University

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Dr Ken Sanderson

Research (recent projects)

Aquaculture & Marine Biology

2005-6 honours students Trish Lavery, Melissa Pitts, Nicky Filby and Nardi Cribb looked at different aspects of dolphin biology, in collaboration with Dr Cath Kemper (SA Museum) and Dr Mike Bossley (Australian Dolphin Research Foundation).

2004 honours student Andrew Manning (supervised jointly with Dr John Carragher at SARDI looked at stress responses in Pacific Oysters, aiming to find a marker which might be used by oyster farmers to easily detect stress in oysters.

2002 honours student Kate Miller looked at quality of tuna flesh following harvesting of tuna from tuna farms at Port Lincoln. This project is part of an overall much greater effort seeking to maximize the return to the tuna industry of high quality tuna from Port Lincoln sold in Japan as sashimi. Kate was helped greatly by Drs. John Carragher & Phil Thomas, also from Biological Sciences, Flinders University

Animal Behaviour

Since 1990 students have carried out projects with an animal behaviour theme. Details of some long running projects follow below.

Foraging & Roosting Behaviour in Bats

Bats are very common animals in South Australia, and in many other places in the world, but because they are active at night and many of their vocalisations are in the human ultrasonic range, they have often been overlooked, and bat-studies have only really taken off in about the last 2 decades (though some dedicated bat workers have been studying bats for decades). Within South Australia our studies have focussed on:

Bats of the Adelaide region

A survey (1993-7) of bats of Belair National Park using the "anabat system" detected 9 species, with Vespadelus darlingtoni (Large Forest Bat) most common. Chalinolobus gouldii (Gould's wattled bat) is a regular evening visitor to Flinders University where it forages for insects in the floodlights around several buildings, using frequency modulated calls which terminate at around 30 kHz. Hunting behavior of some bats was studied by honours student Adam Cronin (1992) who confirmed that the Lesser Long-Eared Bat (Nyctophilus geoffroyi) uses prey-generated sounds to catch it's prey, whereas most other local bats depend upon echo-location for prey catching. Activity of bats near Adelaide is year-round, with more activity in summer than in winter. Most bats start flying at Evening Civil Twilight (25-30 minutes after sunset in Adelaide) and finish flying at Morning Civil Twilight (25-30 minutes before sunrise). Behaviour at house roosts was studied by Joanna Bonner (as part of her 1999 honours project), and Dan & Bev Jaeger. Observations on Freetail Bat Mormopterus planiceps at a house roost included 2 years continuous observation (March 1999 to February 2001), plus scattered observations since then.

Current studies (2007-8) have been using digital collection of bat calls to survey bat activity in various locations including the Adelaide Hills and opportunistically in the Flinders Ranges.

Digital recording of bats: Lesser Long-eared bat, then Freetail bat, and another Lesser Long-Eared bat at house in Bugle Ranges, 2007.

Bat leaving house at Bridgewater, 2007.

Cave-dwelling bats at Naracoorte

Naracoorte Caves are in the south east of South Australia, and are a world heritage area, becoming well known for the palaeontology work of Professor Rod Wells (Flinders University) who has devoted more than 30 years to exploring the fossil deposits of Victoria Fossil Cave at Naracoorte. Naracoorte Caves reserve has a number of "show" caves with nice formations in them as well, and "Bat Cave" which is the maternity chamber for the South Australian population of the Bent-winged Bat, Miniopterus schreibersii. In 1995, infrared video cameras were installed in Bat Cave through the drive and vision of head ranger Brian Clarke and these allow one to view the activity of bats in Bat Cave in complete darkness, but for the viewer it looks like broad daylight. In 1997 honours student Jon Codd studied the activity of bats in Bat cave using the infrared camera viewing system. Jon found that in autumn (March to May) bats spent most of the daylight hours roosting, but began to be more active about 2 hours prior to sunset and remained active around sunrise as they returned. Most bats left Bat Cave by early June and migrated to other areas. Jon marked 45 bats with reflective tape, and showed that some of them returned over a period of 10 days to the same positions in Bat Cave. Climate studies (1998-2000) logged temperatures and humidities in Bat Cave, and other Naracoorte Caves and observed bat distributions in the caves at different times of the year and identified guanophilic organisms which live in Bat guano - primarily mites, beetles, flies and pseudoscorpions.

Cave temperature

Temperatures within the inner chamber of Robertson cave (14.2-14.8 ° C) and in Blanche cave and outer chamber of Robertson cave (9-15 ° C), Feb 98 to Feb 2000.

Bandicoot Distribution

The Southern Brown Bandicoot, Isoodon obesulus, is a small marsupial (400-1200 gms) which is vulnerable to fox and cat predation. Over the years 1995-2002 Flinders University undergraduates & honours students (Darren Richardson 1999, Julia Alessio 2000, Nicola Reese 2000, Melinda Kovac 2001-2) studied their distribution. During the years 1997-2002 students (in collaboration with National Parks) microchipped a population of over 60 bandicoots in a restricted area within the Park, and observed a gradual increase in bandicoot distribution, possibly as a result of fox baiting within the park. The microchipping provided valuable information about longevity, and growth of bandicoots.

Vocalisations & Hearing in Birds

(with Mark Jurisevic, Monette Swanson, Sharon Wood, Josie Goodyear, Chris Evans). Australian songbirds (and other songbirds) communicate with songs (for establishment and maintenance of territories) and calls, which are often for survival functions (begging, alarm and distress calls). Mark Jurisevic completed a PhD at Flinders Uni 1991-1996, and observed that Australian honeyeaters, like Northern Hemisphere passerines, produce two different types of alarm calls, narrow band calls given in response to aerial predators such as the peregrine falcon, and broad band calls given in response to terrestrial predators, such as a cat or a person.

Sonogram

Alarm calls of Noisy Miner Manorina melanocephala

Aerial Alarm (left) elicited by large flying bird, Terrestrial Alarm (right) given during mobbing of large bird. Calls recorded by Mark Jurisevic, Sonograms prepared by Chris Evans using "Canary". We played various sounds back to a range of birds to see how they would respond.

Hearing

Responses of Brown Falcons to Aerial (left) and Terrestrial Alarm Calls (right)

shaded section shows correct location (much greater for broad-band terrestrial alarm calls), open section of bar shows detection. Data collected by Sharon Wood. Mark Jurisevic (PhD 1991-6) & honours students Monette Swanson (1996), Sharon Wood (née Wenzel) (1997) and Josie Goodyear (1999-2000) observed that a range of of kestrels, hawks, falcons, owls and honeyeaters readily located broad-band alarm calls, and responded more inaccurately to narrow-band alarm calls. Mark Jurisevic observed that raptors had a hearing range extending from low frequencies (1/4 kHz or less) through to around 10 kHz, and with most raptors unresponsive to sounds above 12 kHz.

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