Our Research
Our research aims to improve fauna return to restoration across the state, focussing on multiple case study projects.
Projects
We offer a range of specialized services tailored to meet your individual needs. Our approach is focused on understanding and responding to what you require, providing effective and practical solutions.
Movement ecology
This project will conduct the fine scale tracking of northern quolls to understand how they traverse across the landscape to optimise location selection for artificial habitat deployment. We also aim to better understand the demographics of quolls that most often use artificial habitats, facilitating a more targeted design.
Vertebrate use of artificial habitats
This research will determine how different vertebrate species use artificial habitat structures and how to mitigate structures becoming ecological traps. We will also better understand how mining related infrastructure and disturbances influence fauna uptake of habitat structures.
Ghost bat roosts
To mitigate the loss of natural caves, industry partners are creating complex artificial roosts. The aim of this project is to optimise the design of artificial roosts in the Pilbara (e.g. improving internal surface texture) and create best practice standards.
Northern quoll habitat
Northern quolls den in rocky habitat in the Pilbara. As a way to replicate these structures in rehabilitated sites, piles of rocks are created. This research aims to understand optimal design of rock piles for northern quolls, including their situation in the landscape relating to mining infrastructure and disturbances.
Culturally significant fauna
This project aims to understand how to encourage culturally significant goannas back on Country after mine closure. We will determine how mining activities influence the use of the landscape by goanna species and trial shade structures to improve thermoregulation opportunities for goannas in early rehabilitation sites. Research into rodenticide contamination of goannas across the state will also help determine their safety for consumption as a bush-meat species if cultural practices are reinstated upon their return to the landscape.
Beyond the Pilbara
This research will improve our understandings of the ecology of some of Australia’s least studied,
threatened and culturally significant species. It will provide evidence-based approaches to the recovery
and rehabilitation of diverse threatened species and ecosystems that can be used as models for
rehabilitation efforts in other locations and with other species across Australia.
National implications
There are no national guidelines available for the Australian mining industry on how to facilitate fauna return in mine site rehabilitation, in part due to the limited scientific evidence about specific fauna requirements. National and international guidelines do not specify what factors should be considered when creating habitats, what species-specific requirements might be, or what are best practices and appropriate standards and metrics, creating a clear gap in research and impeding translation of best practices into policy. This gap has restricted industry’s abilities to use best practices and achieve ‘Net Positive’ outcomes through rehabilitation, and regulators’ capacities to set and enforce these standards. Studies on optimising artificial habitat are limited worldwide, and there are critical knowledge gaps surrounding the
target species, which could be conducted at the scale required to make the evidence actionable through this project. National Guidelines will be critical for improved regulatory and industry alignment and facilitating a collective shift toward evidence-based holistic rehabilitation practices and positive ecological outcomes.
The case study research in the Fauna Habitat Research Group will inform the development of National Guidelines for Artificial Habitat in Mine Site Restoration, led by Dr Holly Bradley. The guidelines will be developed in consultation with industry partners (BHP, Rio Tinto, Mineral Resources, Fortescue and Roy Hill), Traditional Custodians, government, and other researchers. We aim to produce guidelines to improve alignment between industry and regulators and increase awareness of best practice standards across the nation.