Woodland birds benefit from suppression of a despotic competitor following creation of an artificial ‘sink’ habitat through culling

While habitat fragmentation negatively impacts native biodiversity, this ecological process can generally be beneficial for edge-specialist species that preferentially occupy remnant patches. In the woodlands of eastern Australia, this process leads to domination of remnant patches by a despotic native honeyeater, the Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala), resulting in aggressive exclusion of other avifauna. Culling has been trialled to alleviate the impacts of Noisy Miners, but has yielded only mixed success in the short term, as recolonising miners from the surrounding areas often occupy newly culled sites. We tested if continuous removal of Noisy Miners could create an artificial ‘sink’ habitat that would continually attract dispersing Noisy Miners to preferentially colonise the ‘sink’ area, reducing miner dispersal into other areas in the landscape and allowing recovery of native woodland birds as a result. Over an 18-month period, Noisy Miners were regularly removed from two co..., , # Woodland birds benefit from suppression of a despotic competitor following creation of an artificial ‘sink’ habitat through culling

Ahmad Barati1, Paul G. McDonald1

1Avian Behavioural Ecology Laboratory, Zoology, University of New England, Armidale NSW 2351 Australia

Corresponding Author:

Ahmad Barati1

1Avian Behavioural Ecology Laboratory, Zoology, University of New England, Armidale NSW 2351 Australia,

Email: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

This data set BaratiMcDonald_SinkCull.xlsx is the raw data collected for the above research, looking at the effectiveness of sink-based culling method of Noisy Miner.

**Cull_Data sheet:**

Column Name Description

* Bird ID Unique identifier for each culled bird

- Day Day of the month when the bird was culled

* Round Culling round or session number

- Date Date the bird was culled

* Colony Name or code of the colony where the bird was located

- NumberCulledEeat Number of birds culled at the eastern colony

* NumberC...,