Researchers

DR KEVIN WARBURTONDr Kevin Warburton

Institute adjunct Dr Kevin Warburton, 59, who is based at the Albury-Wodonga campus at Thurgoona, is a fish ecologist who joined the Institute from the University of Queensland about a year ago.

Originally from the UK, he grew up in Kent and went to the University of Newcastle-on-Tyne in Northern England  where he did a Bachelor of Science in zoology and a PhD in marine ecology looking at the population dynamics, growth and behaviour of herbivorous snails living on inter -tidal seaweed.

From there he “switched to fish” and did two years as a post-doc. with the University of Liverpool. In collaboration with the national university of Mexico, the university had an eight year development project which looked at how the management of prawn fisheries in lagoons on the west coast of Mexico could be improved. Kevin’s role in the project was to study how the fish in the system interacted with the prawns.

Kevin then got a position in Aberdeen at the marine lab run by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, where he did stock assessments of three types of industrial species of fish (used for fish meal and fish oil) caught in Scottish waters – Blue Whiting, Norway Pout and sand eels. After three years, he got a job with the University of Queensland as a lecturer in ichthyology and vertebrate biology in 1982. By that time he was married and he moved to Australia with his wife Jeni and their new-born baby son. “It was minus 25 degrees when we left Scotland, and when we arrived in Brisbane and got off the plane it was about 80% humidity and 35 degrees,” says Kevin. “It was quite a thermal shock!”

But the Warburtons loved the tropical feel of Brisbane and lived there until Jeni, a social scientist, got a job as Chair of Rural Aged Care Research at La Trobe University in Wodonga in September 2008. Kevin, meanwhile had left the university early in 2007 to do more consultancy work…something he still does. However, once he and his wife moved to Yackandandah in North-East Victoria, he applied to become an ILWS adjunct as he was keen to maintain his research interests and connections with academic colleagues.

As Kevin reflects on the various research projects he has been involved in over the years, he describes himself as “restless.” “One thing just seemed to lead to the next,” he says. When he moved to Brisbane, initially he continued his interest in marine fish ecology and habitat. But, progressively, he became more and more involved with freshwater fish, particularly their behaviour. He helped to develop a simulation model for social cohesion, which also fostered his interests in animal behaviour. “I got interested in the theoretical side of grouping behaviour,” says Kevin who went on to research things like social foraging, spatial memory, predator learning, and sibling recognition. “What I’ve been most excited about out of all that is that it is helping to show that fish are quite sophisticated in terms of learning and memory.”

So as far as the joke that gold fish have only got a three second memory - by the time they swim around their bowl and get to the front again they have forgotten where they were— Kevin says it’s completely untrue. “There’s been a lot of work done over the last 15 years on learning and memory in fish,” says Kevin who has contributed to that research. “They can remember prey types, for example, for months. Three seconds is just rubbish. And some of the behavioural traits that we think are very human, such as deception, fish have as well.”

In 2006 Kevin published a paper on experimental trials looking at how Silver Perch learn how to handle different types of prey. “What came out, unexpectedly, was that while they were learning about their prey, their foraging efficiency went down,” says Kevin. “With one type of prey, the fish got more and more efficient at catching their food, but when we put two different types of prey in together, their overall efficiency dropped. We think it was because of the divided attention factor. It’s a cost of learning.”

Much of Kevin’s field and laboratory work was done with local native fish in South East Queensland. His interest in behavioural ecology led him to investigate habitat quality and how that affects fish in terms of refuge availability, feeding opportunities and coping with invasive species that compete with and feed on natives. “With my third year students we ended up doing regular surveys across Brisbane’s waterways to measure habitat quality and fish diversity,” says Kevin. “That grew into a broader project, a biodiversity research partnership with the Brisbane City Council, that involved community groups and capacity building.” That project lasted eight years but since moving south, Kevin has continued his involvement, as a consultant, in other projects to do with enhancing aquatic habitats in Brisbane waterways. He will soon be involved in a project to reintroduce fish into creeks for the Redlands Council. During the latter period of his time in Brisbane, Kevin became involved in collaborative research with social scientists
to find out how information constraints affected catchment group activities. This piqued his interest in information transfer.

“That’s what’s behind my newsletter,” says Kevin, who is publishing an on-line electronic newsletter Freshwater Research News. “I think there is a role for someone to interpret scientific information and bring it out into the broader community.” The free newsletter contains brief summaries on the background and significance of freshwater research projects around the world. So far Kevin has around 300 subscribers, from around the globe, to the newsletter which he intends to publish at least four times a year, more if he can get funding to do so. He says the newsletter is targeted at agency staff involved in managing aquatic resources; educators and students; members of community organisations involved in environmental protection or conservation; and aquatic researchers interested in staying aware of developments outside their main specialist area.

While working with catchment groups Kevin found that one of the biggest constraints on community-based stream monitoring was fish identification. “While you can get books covering all the 300 or so freshwater species found in Australia, for people doing surveys that can be a bit daunting,” says Kevin, who ended up developing a guide to freshwater fish in Brisbane waterways based on easily recognisable visual features. Along similar lines, since becoming an Institute adjunct, he has developed a visual guide to introduced trees in NSW and Victoria, particularly invasive species found in riparian areas, and is investigating publication options. “I have more time now to do these kind of things,” says Kevin who also been advising and examining ILWS research students.

Article appeared in Connections#20.  February 2010

Freshwater Research News

Freshwater Research News (FRN) is a free newsletter designed to increase understanding of aquatic issues by bringing recently-published research findings to a general audience. FRN contains brief, easy-to read summaries of the background and significance of freshwater research projects from around the world. The subject range is wide, with an emphasis on key physical and ecological processes, and on transferable ideas and applications. FRN ‘s subscription list includes natural resource managers, conservationists, scientists and educators. The FRN website is at: http://freshwaterresearch.wordpress.com/