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Woodland birds benefit from suppression of a despotic competitor following creation of an artificial ‘sink’ habitat through culling

Barati, Ahmad1; McDonald, Paul1

Published Jul 30, 2025 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2ngf1vj1v

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Abstract

While habitat fragmentation negatively impacts native biodiversity, this ecological process can generally be beneficial for edge-specialist species that preferentially occupy remnant patches. In the woodlands of eastern Australia, this process leads to domination of remnant patches by a despotic native honeyeater, the Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala), resulting in aggressive exclusion of other avifauna. Culling has been trialled to alleviate the impacts of Noisy Miners, but has yielded only mixed success in the short term, as recolonising miners from the surrounding areas often occupy newly culled sites. We tested if continuous removal of Noisy Miners could create an artificial ‘sink’ habitat that would continually attract dispersing Noisy Miners to preferentially colonise the ‘sink’ area, reducing miner dispersal into other areas in the landscape and allowing recovery of native woodland birds as a result. Over an 18-month period, Noisy Miners were regularly removed from two colonies, and the resulting changes in both miner density and the diversity of other woodland birds were evaluated. At one colony, Noisy Miners routinely recolonised the area after each removal, creating an artificial ‘sink’ habitat as miner density rapidly recovered in between culling rounds. However, by attracting dispersing miners in the landscape to this culling site, it follows that recolonisation pressure elsewhere would have fallen. This was evident in this study through a nearby area failing to be recolonised by miners post-culling for more than one year, and also concurrently experiencing an improvement in avian diversity in the absence of miners. This shift in diversity away from the sink site highlights the potential of this technique to deliver broad-scale results with relatively quick outcomes. Further, the simplified protocol of repeated culls undertaken at a sink site is likely to be both logistically simpler and cheaper for land managers than attempting culling across all areas occupied by miners. Practical Implication: Continuous removal of Noisy Miners at designated ‘sink’ sites can attract dispersing individuals, reducing recolonisation elsewhere and promoting native woodland bird recovery. This cost-effective approach is simpler than widespread culling and minimises landscape disruption. Ongoing culling at favoured sites is likely more effective than short-term efforts across multiple locations, providing a practical strategy for managing native species exceeding ecological carrying capacity.