Guest Speaker was Ken Green. Monday 30 January 2006.

Ken Green is an alpine ecologist with the National Parks Service. He has worked in Antarctica and above the Everest base camp.

Dusky Antechinus. For his Ph.D. studies in the late 1970’s, he worked on the Dusky Antechinus. It does not hibernate and therefore has to feed daily on insects. Ken devised tube samplers for trapping hair from animals and pit traps for catching invertebrates in the subnivean space below the snow. The invertebrates move beneath the snow in winter where there is a stable temperature between 0-1^oC. The quoll was the main predator until the 1890’s when the fox replaced it.

Wombats are not well adapted to snow but can scratch through snow to reach grass underneath.

Invertebrates. Ken talked about plant communities and snow patches. More research is necessary to find out if there is a specialized snow patch community of invertebrates.

Grasshoppers may change their colour throughout the day to keep an optimum temperature. Cockroaches shuttle between sun and shade.

Bogong moths are only 2cm long, contain 65% fat and cluster in rock crevices at 20 000 individuals per square metre. Two billion come to the Snowy Mountains to aestivate during summer when pastures on the plains have dried off. Moths have very high arsenic levels picked up from agricultural and horticultural sprays. The arsenic from dead moths has poisoned the soil around aestivation sites.

The Broad-toothed Rat may be greatly affected by global warming. They make haystacks, off which they feed under the snow. Their population crashed in 1999, when there was an early thaw.

The Corroboree Frog responds to noises like car doors slamming and shouting. The species may survive only with captive breeding and relocation. They only live in bogs to breed and shelter under logs and in leaf litter during summer and autumn. This makes them susceptible to fire. The Alpine Tree Frog was also monitored, and are also declining.

Birds increase in numbers in springtime, and their numbers fluctuate with plant flowering and thaws.

Skinks.Skinks may be cryptic. Australia has 9 alpine reptile species, a very high number internationally. Most bear live offspring, although one sub-alpine species lays eggs.

Native fish. Glaxias spp are present in the upper levels of alpine streams, lakes and even on ice where introduced trout have not reached. Galxias have recently colonized Lake Cootapatamba for the first time in recorded history. What effects will this have on the ecology?

David Ratkowsky.

Freshly dropped Skink scat and blowfly.
Charlottes Pass. Photo: Rosalind Smallwood.