The Kagu ( Rhynochetos jubatus ) is an endangered endemic bird and emblem of New Caledonia, thus an ideal flagship species for conservation management and planning of protected areas on Grande Terre, the main island. We assessed the density distribution of Kagu by combining results of analyses at two spatial scales. At the local scale, we estimated density in two protected Kagu strongholds. At the island-wide scale, we modelle...

The little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata , is an invasive species known to negatively affect many native species in its introduced range. Here, we studied the effect of little fire ant presence on the biomass of soil fauna in rainforest of New Caledonia to assess if little fire ants have an impact on an endangered endemic flightless bird, the kagu, Rhynochetos jubatus. The average biomass of soil fauna (except for millipede...

We investigated by snow tracking and GPS telemetry how wolves Canis lupus used a dense (4 km/km 2 ) network of forest roads for travel and scent marking. Forty-six percent of wolf trails but only 4.6% of telemetry locations were on forest roads. Wolves used forest roads to travel fast and far across their home ranges but spent relatively little time on roads, especially on those with high traffic levels and during the time of...

Previous research reported a unique haematological profile in the flightless Kagu ( Rhynochetos jubatus ). To verify this, we analysed blood of eight wild and four captive Kagu. The haematological profiles of our captive birds resembled those of the previously studied captive Kagu. Haemoglobin concentration, mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration and mean corpuscular haemoglobin by far exceeded the highest levels recorded...

Reeve et al . (2016, Ecography, 39 , 990–997) recently reported negative range–abundance relationships in Indo‐Pacific bird communities and speculated that geographical isolation facilitates the evolution of broad‐niched, small‐ranged and abundant species. We tested this relationship using a large independent data set on range and abundance of birds across New Caledonia (over 4,000 bird census points for 17,300 km²). In contra...