Gabrielle Potts-Todd, Dr. Joanna Day, Dr. Megan Huggett, Dr. Benjamin Pitcher, Dr. Darren Southwell, Dr. Micheal Stat
Biography:
Gabrielle is a current PhD student at the University of Newcastle investigating possible threats to little penguin populations to inform conservation strategies in NSW, Australia.
She studied her undergraduate degree in environmental science and management also at the University of Newcastle and graduated with first class honours in 2022.
Abstract:
Little penguin populations in New South Wales (NSW) are declining. Recent evidence from other populations in Australia (i.e. in Western Australia) indicate rising ocean temperatures and poor prey availability as major factors impacting little penguin survivorship at the range end of their distribution. There is limited information on the diet of little penguins from NSW colonies compared to other regions, and it is therefore critical to determine what their diet consists of as well as the prey they prefer feeding on. To characterise the prey of little penguins in NSW, scats were collected from five offshore island colonies. Two methodological approaches were employed to characterise diet including shotgun sequencing and metabarcoding using four assays targeting fish, crustaceans, cephalopods and a general eukaryotic assay. Results will provide insight into spatial differences in little penguin diet, as well as the preferred prey items based on frequency of occurrence in scats. Relative read abundance from the general eukaryotic assay and the shotgun dataset will also be assessed to determine the preferred prey taxa. Furthermore, a comparison between the methods will provide insight into the most effective approach to characterise diet. This study is a necessary first step in identifying the prey of little penguins which can be the target of future conservation strategies to assist in the recovery of little penguin populations in NSW.