World’s largest successful island-wide eradication of invasive pigs
Just over two years ago I reported the ‘likely’ eradication of feral pigs from Australia’s third-largest (4,405 km2) island — Kangaroo Island. I indicated ‘likely’ because the program still required...
View ArticleGlobal human population pushing Earth past breaking point
A few weeks ago we published a paper that was in the works for a long time, so long in fact that one of my co-authors died before it was published online. That co-author was none other than the...
View ArticleGenetics to the rescue
Procreating with a relative is taboo in most human societies for many reasons, but they all stem from avoiding one thing in particular — inbreeding increases the risk of genetic disorders that can...
View Article5000 piggies, 500 piggies, 100 piggies, … and there there was none
The Black Summer bushfires of 2019–2020 that razed more than half of the landscape on Kangaroo Island in South Australia left an indelible mark on the island’s unique native biodiversity, which is...
View ArticleSmall populations of Stone Age people drove dwarf hippos and elephants to...
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Christian Reepmeyer, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut – German Archaeological Institute, and Theodora Moutsiou, University of Cyprus Imagine growing up...
View ArticleHuman impact, extinctions, and the biodiversity crisis
Human overpopulation is often depicted in the media in one of two ways: as either a catastrophic disaster or an overly-exaggerated concern. Yet the data understood by scientists and researchers is...
View ArticlePeople once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia – and it had an...
For much of the 65,000 years of Australia’s human history, the now-submerged northwest continental shelf connected the Kimberley and western Arnhem Land. This vast, habitable realm covered nearly...
View ArticleIntricate dance of nature — predicting extinction risks in terrestrial...
Have you ever watched a nature documentary and marvelled at the intricate dance of life unfolding on screen? From the smallest insect to the largest predator, every creature plays a role in the grand...
View ArticleNew job posting: Research Fellow in Eco-Epidemiology & Human Ecology
We are currently seeking a Research Fellow in Eco-epidemiology/Human Ecology to join our team at Flinders University. The successful candidate will develop spatial eco-epidemiological models for the...
View ArticleSome like it hot
Wildfires transform forests into mosaics of vegetation. What, where, and which plants thrive depends on when and how severely a fire affects different areas of a forest. Such heterogeneity in the...
View ArticleInterrupted flows in the Murray River endanger frogs
Flooding in the Murray-Darling Basin is creating ideal breeding conditions for many native species that have evolved to take advantage of temporary flood conditions. Led by PhD candidate Rupert...
View ArticleCan we resurrect the thylacine? Maybe, but it won’t help the global...
(published first on The Conversation) Last week, researchers at the University of Melbourne announced that thylacines or Tasmanian tigers, the Australian marsupial predators extinct since the 1930s,...
View ArticleAnd this little piggy went extinct
Back in June of this year I wrote (whinged) about the disappointment of writing a lot of ecological models that were rarely used to assist real-world wildlife management. However, I did hint that...
View ArticleThe very worn slur of “neo-Malthusian”
After the rather astounding response to our Ghastly Future paper published in January this year (> 443,000 views and counting; 61 citations and counting), we received a Commentary that was rather...
View ArticleKilling (feral) cats quickly (and efficiently)
I’m pleased to announce the publication of a paper led by Kathryn Venning (KV) that was derived from her Honours work in the lab. Although she’s well into her PhD on an entirely different topic, I’m...
View ArticlePopulation of First Australians grew to millions, much more than previous...
Shutterstock/Jason Benz Bennee We know it is more than 60,000 years since the first people entered the continent of Sahul — the giant landmass that connected New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania when sea...
View ArticleThe biggest and slowest don’t always bite it first
For many years I’ve been interested in modelling the extinction dynamics of megafauna. Apart from co-authoring a few demographically simplified (or largely demographically free) models about how...
View ArticleRecreational hunting, conservation and livelihoods: no clear evidence trail
Enrico Di Minin, University of Helsinki; Anna Haukka, University of Helsinki; Anna Hausmann, University of Helsinki; Christoph Fink, University of Helsinki; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University;...
View ArticleConservation paradox – the pros and cons of recreational hunting
Is recreational hunting bad for biodiversity? Not always.
View ArticleNeed to predict population trends, but can’t code? No problem
Yes, yes. I know. Another R Shiny app. However, this time I’ve strayed from my recent bibliometric musings and developed something that’s more compatible with the core of my main research and...
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