Member milestone reached!

Hi everyone,

Thank you to those who got their friends and family excited about the project. The great news is we have reached over 100 members to the Lorikeet Paralysis Project! Fantastic effort by all, and welcome to those who have recently joined us.

This week I would like to update everyone on where we are with the project. Using your observations and the iNaturalist database, we now have approximately 600 records of rainbow lorikeets feeding or the trees that they have been feeding on and have identified more than 70 species of plants on which they feed. Of these 70 species, 21 are potentially toxic and 11 meet the criteria of blooming or fruiting during the same time that LPS cases occur. Thank you to everyone for following the project, and adding your observations to our records!

While the ultimate goal of this study is to identify the plant or plants that are most likely to cause LPS, the data that we are generating is also demonstrating how lorikeets use native and introduced vegetation in an urban environment to meet their nutritional needs.

Tune in next week to hear about what we have coming up for the project this year.

Keep safe, and happy Rainbow Lorikeet spotting!

Regards,
Lauren, David, Maya

Publicado el 03 de febrero de 2022 por lozb97