The Ecology and Conservation Group
Birgit Ziesemann
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Postgraduate StudentPhD StudentEmail: Building 86, Gate 4, Oteha Rohe, Albany Campus, Massey University. Tel: +64 9 414 0800 ext 41520 Fax: +64 9 443 9790 Supervisors: Assoc Prof Dianne Brunton & Dr Isabel Castro |
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RESEARCHSocial organisation and mating system of a high-density North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) population
Previous studies suggest that North Island brown kiwi form long term pair bonds and exhibit monogamy (Taborsky & Taborsky 1999). However, there is little known about kiwi social behaviour despite its conservation importance and iconic status within New Zealand. Moreover, the North Island brown kiwi possess some unique characteristics of reproductive biology and parental care which lead to the intriguing possibility that this species could be polyandrous. Density and thus the availability of potential mates may have an effect on kiwi mating behaviour and social organisaton. The study population of this research is one of the few remaining high-density kiwi populations and may represent kiwi density prior to human arrival in New Zealand. By studying this population we may learn how kiwi behaved socially in pre-human New Zealand and how flexible their mating system may be in different ecological conditions. This research will investigate the social organisation and the social mating system on the basis of collected field data obtained from radio-tagged kiwi. Our preliminary results suggest that kiwi mating behaviour may be density depenedent; low-density populations exhibit monogamy while high density populations exhibit polyandry. These findings will be corroborated by determining the underlying genetic mating system using DNA analyses. Due to the pressures of predation and habitat loss, the translocation of small numbers of kiwi to predator free offshore islands has become an important tool in kiwi conservation (Colbourne 2005). However, the conservation benefits for the species' is only short termed while long term consequences such as inbreeding or low genetic variation are neglected (Jamieson et al. 2006). The kiwi population which is the focus of this research has originated from a small founder popualtion introduced to an offshore island some four decades ago. Thus we aim to investigate the level of genetic variation within this population to help us understand the effects of the bottleneck the population has gone through. Up to date no study has been carried out to investigate the effects of population bottlenecks on the genetic variation of a closed, introduced kiwi population. Effective kiwi management requires an understanding of their life history characteristics and of genetic relationships between individuals in a population in order to prevent the species from losing viability or going extinct due to the loss of genetic variation. |
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FUNDING BODIES
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PUBLICATION/ REPORTSZiesemann B, Brunton DH & Castro I. 2006. Social behavior, interactions and the social mating system of a high-density North Island krown kiwi population (Abstract Only). Journal of Ornithology 147 (5): 278 Suppl. 1. Ziesemann B 2004. MHC-mediated female mate choice in the South African clawed frog Xenopus laevis. Unpublished MSc Thesis. Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany. |Abstract(PDF, 62 KB) | |
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CONFERENCES ATTENDED2007 - Australasian Society of the Study of Animal Behaviour Conference, Canberra, Australia. 2006 - 24th International Ornithological Congress (IOC), Hamburg, Germany. 2006 - National Kiwi Hui, New Plymouth, New Zealand. 2005 - Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour, Palmerston North, New Zealand. |
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The North Island brown kiwi are in serious decline due to human induced habitat destruction and predation from introduced mammals (Hitchmough et al. 2007).
Thus, most kiwi populations are suffering significant recruitment failure of young birds into the breeding population and occur at low densities (Hitchmough et al. 2007).