In this issue…

In this spring issue of ESA's Bulletin, we explore the role of community engagement in ecological management and research into biological conservation. Specifically, within the Labs in the Limelight section, I present two case studies: the first, kindly penned by Dr Bert De Groef from La Trobe University, discusses the role of crowd funding campaigns in his team’s research on the effects of pesticides on amphibian development; the second, contributed by Drs Jemima Stuart-Smith and Gretta Pecl, explores the role of ‘citizen scientists’ in rapidly generating data that one scientist could only dream of! I am talking, of course, of the Repmap project, which aims to map the range extension of marine species throughout Australia.

In Spotlight on Students, I highlight the PhD research by Kate Grarock from ANU into the effects of myna invasion on native bird assemblages. Kate’s work combined analyses of bird diversity and abundance data, that were collected by community-based ornithological groups across Canberra, with widespread collaboration between researchers and volunteer bird surveyors in the field. For me, this work highlights the invaluable contribution that local community members can and do make to novel, high-impact and internationally-relevant ecological research in Australia. With funds for research rapidly on the decline, there is probably no better time to explore the possibilities of researcher-stakeholder collaborations for ecological management!