Ms kathryn napier

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2010 Fulbright Western Australia Scholarship

Media Profile

“Landowners, conservation managers and even biologists often consider mistletoes as invasive pests, potentially damaging tree and forest health. However, hundreds of fauna species are heavily dependent upon mistletoes for food and shelter, and these plants therefore substantially contribute to biodiversity of our environment.”

Kathryn Napier, a PhD candidate at the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Murdoch University, has won the 2010 Fulbright Western Australia Scholarship. Kathryn will spend twelve months at the University of Wyoming researching the relationship between birds and mistletoes.

Kathryn said that mistletoes are a keystone resource in Australian forests and woodlands, being an important native food source and providing shelter for a range of animals. Birds play an important role in mistletoe ecology as they act as pollinators of the flowers, and after they consume the fruit, as agents to disperse the seeds through their droppings.

“The food resources provided by mistletoes have not been quantified. The aim of my project is to identify bird species that consume mistletoe fruit and assess the nutritional importance of mistletoe to the bird community, and to also gain a better understanding of mistletoe biology”.

“This will be achieved through an intensive period of bird and vegetation surveys, coupled with the sampling of both plants and birds. From this project we will begin to assemble a picture of the ecological importance of mistletoe fruit as a resource for the bird community”.

The samples that Kathryn will collect in the field will be processed at the laboratory headed by Professor Martinez del Rio, a world leader in stable isotopes analysis.

“Natural abundances of stable isotopes such as carbon and nitrogen are used as integrators and tracers of physiological and ecological processes, and can be sampled relatively non-invasively in both plants and animals. We hope to use these stable isotope signatures to trace energy movement from the host trees, to the mistletoes, and to the birds”.

This project, whilst concentrating on mistletoe distributions and dispersers in Western Australia, also has national significance in increasing the knowledge base for the management of mistletoes as a keystone resource.

Kathryn has a B.Sc. with 1st class Honours in Biomedical Science and a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Statistics from Murdoch University. She has won various research awards and scholarships, including the Stuart Leslie bird research award, Holsworth Wildlife research endowment, and Jean Gilmore postgraduate research bursary.