The research team, led by observers who monitored the wetland over three consecutive breeding seasons from 2020 to 2022, applied a statistical technique known as binary logistic regression to answer a deceptively simple question: what combination of water depth and vegetation type best predicts where spoonbills will be found? The method, widely used in habitat modeling for presence and absence data, transforms the dependent variable into a logit and applies maximum likelihood estimation, producing coefficients that can be translated directly into probabilities of occurrence across a landscape.

The results were striking. The model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.993 ± 0.008, a value approaching the theoretical maximum of 1.0 for a perfect fit. In practical terms, the ROC curve, which graphs the trade-off between false positives and false negatives, showed that the model could almost perfectly discriminate between locations where spoonbills were present and those where they were absent. The overall classification accuracy reached 98.1 percent at a probability cut-off value of 0.64, with 22 of 22 absence points correctly classified and 30 of 31 presence points identified correctly.

Gandoman Wetland sits at an average elevation of 2220 meters above sea level in the Aqbolaq watershed, on the eastern flank of the Kalar highlands, and lies downstream of the Choghakhor International Wetland, a site designated under the Ramsar Convention. Water flowing out of Choghakhor feeds into Gandoman, linking the two systems ecologically. This connectivity matters: the study suggests Gandoman functions as a corridor habitat for spoonbills and many other birds, which occupy the wetland during the breeding season and depart as winter approaches.

Fieldwork was intensive and systematic. From late April to mid-July, once a week for three years, observers recorded feeding, foraging, and nesting locations using GPS, monitored the birds with a Swarovski 20×60 monocular telescope, Steiner 8×30 binoculars, and a Canon 50× spotting scope, and measured water depth at both nest sites and foraging grounds. Wherever evidence of spoonbill activity was found, the location was logged as a presence point; areas monitored for three years without any spoonbill observation were marked as non-presence points, a conservative approach reflecting the fact that absence data cannot be verified with the same certainty as presence.

The regression coefficients revealed a clear pattern with direct management implications. Water depth emerged as a significant predictor, with a coefficient of -0.168 and a statistically significant p-value of 0.016, meaning that as depth increased, the probability of spoonbill presence for feeding decreased. The birds fed almost exclusively in water shallower than 40 centimeters, consistent with previous findings that the species can forage only in water no deeper than this threshold. Their long legs, necks, and bills allow them to exploit deeper water than smaller waders, but only up to a point.

Vegetation preferences differed sharply between activities. For foraging, the analysis pointed to areas dominated by Carex-Juncus associations, sedges and rushes that typically grow in sparse stands with open water between them. For nesting, the birds favored denser combinations of Cladium-Cyperus and Blysmus-Phragmites species, tall reeds and sedges that provide concealment. The Exp(B) values from the model quantified these associations, indicating that Blysmus-Phragmites, Cladium-Cyperus, and Juncus communities increased the odds of presence for feeding, while Carex-Juncus and Phragmites-Cyperus-Cladium combinations were associated with nesting sites.

The behavioral logic behind this split is straightforward but elegant. Nests built among dense reeds gain camouflage and physical protection, shielding eggs and chicks from predators that threaten the species on land or in shallow water. Foraging, by contrast, requires visibility and access: high, dense vegetation can limit a waterbird’s ability to detect prey and move through the wetland, so spoonbills selected areas with sparse vegetation where their sweeping bill-stroke could work efficiently. This balance between predation risk and foraging access is a recurring theme in waterbird ecology, and the study quantifies it precisely for one species at one site.

The findings arrive against a sobering global backdrop. Wetlands cover less than 2 percent of Earth’s continental surface and are being lost at roughly three times the rate of natural forests, driven by climate change, urbanization, drainage, wastewater discharge, and land-use conversion. Because waterbirds sit near the top of aquatic food chains and depend on wetlands for feeding, sheltering, and breeding, they serve as sensitive indicators of ecosystem condition. The Eurasian Spoonbill itself, listed as Least Concern globally by the IUCN Red List, is regarded as a flagship, umbrella, and indicator species, meaning its protection confers benefits on a broader community of wetland organisms.

The study also documents a local success story. Restoration measures in recent years, including the construction of an earthen dam at the eastern exit of the wetland, have increased water depth in the northern and central portions and expanded the extent of reed growth. The authors suggest these changes should support a growing spoonbill breeding population in the coming years, although agricultural development and the wetland’s proximity to a nearby city remain potential threats. The site has already been designated a prohibited hunting area by Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization, and the researchers argue that continued monitoring could justify its recognition as an Important Bird Area.

Perhaps the most broadly applicable conclusion is that no single wetland can meet all the requirements of a diverse waterbird community. Different species need different water depths, vegetation structures, and levels of isolation from human disturbance. From a landscape perspective, surrounding wetlands influence both the number of waterfowl species a site can support and their reproductive performance. The authors therefore advocate developing and maintaining multiple complementary wetlands within an ecosystem, a strategy that the Gandoman-Choghakhor pair, linked by water and by the movements of the birds themselves, already exemplifies. For a species that arrives each March, nests among the reeds, and feeds in the shallows before departing in autumn, the future of such interconnected wetland mosaics may determine whether the spoonbill’s spatula bill continues to stir Iranian waters each spring.

Subject of Research: Habitat preference modeling for nesting and foraging Eurasian Spoonbills in the Gandoman Wetland, Iran

Article Title: Habitat preference for nesting and foraging of Eurasian Spoonbill ( Platalea leucorodia ) in breeding season

Article References: Habitat preference for nesting and foraging of Eurasian Spoonbill ( Platalea leucorodia ) in breeding season. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.3897/saddi.30.161299

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/saddi.30.161299

Keywords: Eurasian Spoonbill, Platalea leucorodia, Gandoman Wetland, habitat suitability modeling, binary logistic regression, water depth, wetland vegetation, breeding season, waterbird conservation, Iran, ROC curve, wetland management

Dingoes are Australia’s apex terrestrial predator and, like wolves, live in family-based packs typically anchored by a socially dominant breeding pair. Packs breed annually between March and June, and offspring from previous years often remain with the natal group, sometimes helping to rear subsequent litters. In undisturbed populations, dingo territories are usually clearly defined with limited overlap between neighbours. Yet direct observations of aggression between packs are exceedingly rare for this wide-ranging and cryptic species, which has left scientists largely in the dark about how dingo societies respond when dominant animals die, whether through natural mortality or through the broadscale lethal control that is practised across much of the Australian continent.

The study site sits on Worimi Country in the Great Lakes region, where researchers have monitored dingo packs since 2019. Individual dingoes were trapped in large walk-in cages baited with fish or kangaroo meat, anaesthetised by a wildlife veterinarian using a medetomidine-ketamine combination delivered via blow dart, and fitted with GPS collars recording hourly locations. Home ranges were estimated using 95% minimum convex polygons applied to the collar data, a well-established technique for canid pack range estimation. In parallel, a network of twenty-two trail camera stations, each pairing two cameras roughly 2,500 metres apart and positioned to capture both flanks of passing animals, allowed researchers to identify individual dingoes by their unique sock patterns and distinctive markings across three defined periods: before, during, and after the conflict.

The two focal packs, known as the Mungo Brush pack (MB) and the Stewart and Lloyds pack (SL), held adjacent territories. On 27 March 2022, at the very start of the breeding season, three MB males, the dominant UOM1701 and two subdominants, UOM2001 and UOM2002, killed PCM1601, the dominant male of the SL pack, on a road just inside the MB pack’s own range. A subdominant SL male, SLM2005, was later found dead nearby and is assumed to have died in the same incident. Notably, the MB pack left both carcasses uneaten. Although cannibalism has been documented in dingoes in desert environments, the researchers argue that the unconsumed carcasses support the interpretation that these deaths resulted from intraspecific territorial conflict rather than predation for food.

The violence did not end there. On 9 May 2022, the dominant MB male UOM1701 was found dead on a beach within his own pack’s pre-conflict range, bearing neck bite wounds consistent with a dingo attack. The killing itself was unobserved, but the researchers consider it most probable that one or both of his former subordinates, UOM2001 or UOM2002, were responsible, since both survived the period and went on to assume dominance in the two packs. Tellingly, researchers had already recorded a tense encounter at a scent-marking site in April, in which UOM1701 closely and aggressively shadowed UOM2001 when the younger male appeared interested in overmarking the scent of the SL pack’s dominant female, behaviour the researchers interpret as suggestive of a power struggle between the two.

Camera trap data revealed how dramatically the conflict destabilised movement patterns. Across 215 independent detections, dingoes were proportionally far more likely to be recorded outside their home range during the conflict period: 42.6% of detections fell outside pack boundaries during the conflict, compared with just 9.1% before and 26.9% after. Daily detection rates per living dingo also dropped after the conflict, suggesting that surviving animals were moving differently, associating differently, or both. The dominant female of the SL pack was seen with MB pack males eight times from the onset of the conflict, and all three adult MB males were photographed alongside the dominant females of both packs on separate occasions over four weeks, while the two females themselves were never seen together and maintained spatial segregation.

The reproductive fallout was equally striking. Each of the three MB males was observed mating with the SL dominant female SLF1501 during the territorial re-establishment period. On 21 April 2022, UOM2001, previously a subordinate, was filmed breeding with SLF1501 while the still-dominant UOM1701 was present, an unambiguous signal that the old hierarchy had collapsed. SLF1501 produced a litter that year, though paternity remains unknown, and UOM2002 helped rear the pups, a pattern the researchers suggest may reflect the benefits females can gain from confusing paternity among multiple males. UOM2002 subsequently formed a dominant pair with SLF1501 and is assumed to have sired her litters in 2023, 2024 and 2025. UOM2001 was also photographed mating with the MB pack’s dominant female, although she produced no litter in that or any subsequent season.

Perhaps the most consequential finding concerns the roles of the sexes in holding territory together. After the dust settled, both packs reverted to their pre-conflict home ranges, with the new dominant pairs, UOM2002 with SLF1501 in the SL territory and UOM2001 with UOF1801 in the MB territory, remaining stable through to August 2026. Crucially, it was the dominant females who stayed put while the males moved between packs, hinting that female dingoes may anchor home range stability and extent to a greater degree than males. This echoes patterns described in other territorial systems, where female territories track resource availability and male territories track females, and it identifies a significant gap in dingo research: the contribution of females to territorial dynamics remains understudied.

The observations align with a broader literature on what happens when dominant carnivores die. In red foxes, the death of a dominant male preceded considerable social disruption, with many more subordinate individuals sighted in the vacant territory. In coyotes, a neighbouring stable pack shifted its territory into space vacated after a dominant male’s death. The dingo case adds a vivid Australian data point: social disruption, particularly during the breeding season, creates opportunities for subordinates, and the resulting period of realignment can render the behaviour of remaining animals deeply unpredictable.

That unpredictability carries real weight for wildlife management. Indiscriminate lethal control of dingoes through poison baiting is practised widely across Australia, and the death of dominant individuals can trigger exactly the kind of social instability documented here, making ranging patterns less predictable and potentially producing undesirable management outcomes, including increased breeding by previously suppressed animals and shifts in territory boundaries. The authors caution that their observations, drawn from a single conflict between two packs, may not represent every dingo population, and that outcomes could differ where dominant females rather than males are killed. Even so, the episode demonstrates that dingo packs are not static hierarchies but fragile social systems, in which the loss of a single dominant animal, whether at the teeth of rivals or at the hands of managers, can set off a cascade of killings, mate swaps and territorial reshuffling that reverberates for years.

Subject of Research: Inter-pack conflict and social reorganisation in contiguous dingo packs following the deaths of dominant males

Article Title: Observations of Inter‐Pack Conflict and Pack Instability in Contiguous Dingo Packs

Article References: Alting, B. F., Pitcher, B. J., Campbell‐Ward, M. L., & Jordan, N. R. (2026). Observations of Inter‐Pack Conflict and Pack Instability in Contiguous Dingo Packs. Ecology and Evolution, 16(9), Article e74376. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.74376

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/ece3.74376

Keywords: dingoes, inter-pack conflict, territoriality, dominance hierarchy, canid social structure, GPS collaring, camera traps, scent marking, lethal control, Myall Lakes, breeding season, Australia