RIEL seminar series
Friends or foes? The social behaviours and system of estuarine crocodiles
Presenter | Dr Cameron Baker | |
---|---|---|
Date |
|
|
Time |
to
|
|
Contact person | E: riel.outreach@cdu.edu.au | |
Location |
Yellow 1.1.39 or online via zoom https://charlesdarwinuni.zoom.us/j/84238901294 |
|
Open to | Public |
All animal species are inherently social. Regardless of a species' level of gregariousness, individuals must make social decisions to balance the costs and benefits of sharing their environment with conspecifics. However, our understanding of animal sociality has primarily been built on the study of group-living species. Far less attention has been given to understanding the sociality of non-group living species, which are often assumed to lack the social complexity and competence of group-living species. This is mainly due to the difficulty of observing and examining the social behaviours of non-group living species because of the rarity in which interactions occur and the large and often inaccessible areas these animals inhabit.
In this talk, Cameron will demonstrate how techniques and approaches from spatial ecology and socioecology can be integrated to gain insights into the social behaviours and systems of non-group living species. For this, he will be using the estuarine crocodile Crocodylus porosus as his model species. Throughout the talk, Cameron will demonstrate that rather than being ‘asocial’ and intolerant of conspecifics, estuarine crocodiles instead inhabit a highly dynamic social system, where individuals actively control how they associate with conspecifics depending on their maturity status, movement strategy and time of year.
Cameron Baker completed his Bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Zoology at the University of Queensland in 2016. This was then followed by an Honour’s degree in Ecology in 2017 and a PhD in Behavioural Ecology (2018-2022). His focus during these years was on investigating the interface between the spatial and social behaviours of animals, and how this in turn influences a species' ecology and distribution. Cameron started as a Postdoc at RIEL in 2023, where he will be assessing the ecological impact of the large carnivore (crocodile) recovery in the Northern Territory.
Related Events
Loss of Earth's old, wise and large animals
Read more about Loss of Earth's old, wise and large animalsIn this seminar, Keller will outline that humans have caused a decline in old age-classes of wild animal populations whereby many of Earth’s oldest, often largest, and most experienced individuals have been eliminated from ecosystems.
A biome approach to plot-based vegetation classification in northern Australia
Read more about A biome approach to plot-based vegetation classification in northern AustraliaIn this seminar, Donna will present a floristic plot-based classification of the Australian tropical savanna biome using a composite of vegetation plot-based data sourced from the Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia governments, TERN, and non-government organisations.
Host–pathogen–microbiome interactions
Read more about Host–pathogen–microbiome interactionsDr Chava Weitzman will discuss the relative ease and challenges of studying emerging diseases in two groups of hosts, tortoises and house finches, each impacted by a bacterial Mycoplasma pathogen.