Chatham Islands, New Zealand

Over the next 13 weeks Dr Melanie Massaro and her team from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury will be on Rangatira Island to gather data for her research and blogging about it at rangatirablackrobin.blogspot.com

Native birds are constantly under threat on mainland New Zealand from introduced predators such as rats and cats. Introduced bird species such as blackbirds have flourished under the same conditions. Melanie is interested in why this is so. There is also some evidence showing that mainland native birds are changing their behaviours to cope with the introduced predators.

The forest of Rangatira Island allows Melanie to investigate the behaviour of various bird species that have evolved without introduced predators (there are no introduced predators on this island). She then compares the behaviour of the Rangatira birds with similar species on the New Zealand mainland to see if the mainland species are starting to adapt to the introduced predators.

Melanie is also interested in studying population bottlenecks and the effect this has on a species. A population bottleneck occurs when then the number of breeding individuals within a population fall to very low levels. This means that only the genetic material from a small number of individuals within the population will be passed onto future generations. This results in a loss of genetic varation in the population.

Many bird species on Rangatira Island have passed through a population bottleneck. Melanie is interested in investigating what effect the loss of genetic variation has on several different bird species including the Black Robin and the Chatham Island Tomtit.

Follow the blog at rangatirablackrobin.blogspot.com