DM Watson standing next to the hemi-parasitic plant, /Nuytsia floribunda/ in 2007
Born
Melbourne, Victoria
Nationality
Australian
Education
The University of Kansas
Title
Professor of Ecology
David M. Watson is an Australian
ornithologist and
ecologist who is also a scientific specialist on
mistletoes.[1] He served on the New South Wales Threatened Species Scientific Committee from 2015 until publicly resigning in June 2017 in protest after the NSW
Berejiklian government passed a bill granting heritage status to
feral horses in the
Kosciuszko National Park.[2][3][4][5]
Watson is an ecologist with a research focus on habitat fragmentation and the ecological interactions between plants and birds. He has an interest in the tools of ecological monitoring such as survey methods and acoustic monitoring. He became fascinated with mistletoe during his Honours degree[7][8] and subsequently wrote a global review of mistletoes as a keystone resource in forests and woodlands worldwide.[9] After this publication, he conducted a large removal experiment of mistletoes from woodlands in Australia and showed that mistletoes acted as drivers of bird diversity, especially insectivores.[10][11][12] He wrote Mistletoes of Southern Australia in 2011[13] (2nd ed., 2019)/.[14][15] Currently, his research focus is on the effects of mistletoe on tree health and soils, mostly in farming and production landscapes, including macadamia crops in Queensland,[16] the introduction of mistletoe in urban trees to increase biodiversity within the urban landscape,[17][18] and conservation of sandalwood in Western Australia.[19] Watson developed the 'standardized search' using the
Chao estimator equations to easily construct species accumulation curves in the field to ensure that wildlife monitoring between sites is comparable.[20] He was also one of five chief instigators of the Australian Acoustic Observatory.[21]
Watson, in his persona of "Dr Dave" has appeared in three series of educational videos including Dr Dave in Box-Gum Grassy Woodlands,[22][23] Dr Dave in the Murray Catchment[24] and Dr Dave in the Outback[25][26]
^Watson, David M. (1999). Temporal scale and the consequences of habitat fragmentation: Case studies on Mesoamerican highland birds. Lawrence, KS, USA: The University of Kansas.
ISBN978-0-599-64944-6.
^Watson, David (2011). Mistletoes of Southern Australia. Melbourne, Australia: CSIRO.
ISBN978-0-643-10083-1.
^Watson, David M. (1 June 1997). "The Importance of Mistletoe to the White-fronted Honeyeater Phylidonyris albifrons in Western Victoria". Emu - Austral Ornithology. 97 (2): 174–177.
doi:
10.1071/MU97021.
ISSN0158-4197.
^Watson, David M. (2001). "Mistletoe—A Keystone Resource in Forests and Woodlands Worldwide". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 32 (1): 219–249.
doi:
10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.32.081501.114024.