Emily Bradstock
- PhD Student, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney
- Topic: Cultural evolution in the song of the endangered Eastern Bristlebird, Dasyornis brachypterus
- Research umbrella: Animal cultures and anthropogenic change
- Supervisors: Dr Anastasia Dalziell, Prof Justin Welbergen, Dr Fiona Backhouse & Dr Kimberly Maute (NSW Department of Planning and Environment)
- Contact: Emily Bradstock
Bio
I am a conservation biologist from Jervis Bay with a particular interest in animal culture and avian vocalisations. I received a Bachelor of Conservation Biology (Honours) (Dean’s Scholar) from the University of Wollongong in 2022. I completed my Honours research on the song culture of the endangered Eastern Bristlebird, Dasyornis brachypterus. Since then, I have continued fieldwork on the passive acoustic monitoring of Eastern Bristlebird song throughout Eastern Australia and assisted with three conservation translocations of the species to establish a new population at Wilson’s Promontory in Victoria. The species is classified as critically endangered in VIC, largely due to wildfire, with the Black Summer Bushfires in 2020 – 2021 being the most recent major contributor to population decline. I also have experience in bush regeneration, ecosystem management, and the delivery of science education programs to school groups, volunteers, and the general public.
Research
I started my PhD with the Lab of Animal Ecology in 2024. My research focuses on bringing the study of avian vocal cultures and threatened species conservation together.
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Conservation practitioners have called for the incorporation of animal culture into conservation management. However, basic empirical data on animal cultures are not available for many species, particularly those that are cryptic or threatened, and the field is in still its infancy, in both theory and practice. Therefore, it is unclear how we can best conserve cultural diversity in the wild, and what the consequences might be for failing to consider culture in conservation. Evidence indicates that the vocal cultures of birds can be impacted by threatening processes like habitat degradation and population decline, as well as conservation interventions like translocation and captive breed-and-release. Conservation interventions are increasingly being used to manage populations of threatened species, but they require careful planning, tailored to the species’ requirements, to ensure positive conservation outcomes.
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The Eastern Bristlebird is a cryptic and semi-flightless songbird confined to three disjunct regions along Australia’s east coast. The species is listed as endangered, impacted by wildfire and habitat fragmentation and has seen consistent conservation management since 2000 to mitigate its extinction risk. Conservation management includes population monitoring, translocation, captive breed-and-release, predator control, and habitat management. Very little is known about the species acoustic ecology, and there are no protocols for preserving the species vocal culture, or other important social behaviours, in current management plans. The overarching aims of my PhD are:
This research will provide a baseline for cultural diversity for the entire species and contribute to the creation of an open-source library of vocalisations useful for education, conservation, and scientific reference purposes. Furthermore, understanding the impacts of translocation on culture will assist practitioners with developing wholistic management frameworks for the Eastern Bristlebird that enable to conservation of both cultural and genetic diversity into the future.
- Quantify the current geographic variation, and associated cultural diversity, in song for all wild populations
- Investigate the impacts of translocation actions on vocal cultures in source and translocated populations
- Propose recommendations for the appropriate management of vocal culture
This research will provide a baseline for cultural diversity for the entire species and contribute to the creation of an open-source library of vocalisations useful for education, conservation, and scientific reference purposes. Furthermore, understanding the impacts of translocation on culture will assist practitioners with developing wholistic management frameworks for the Eastern Bristlebird that enable to conservation of both cultural and genetic diversity into the future.