Dave worked on this project as a postdoctoral researcher.
As with the other log-dwelling invertebrates we are studying, we sought a pair of species with different biological
characteristics (in the case of these cockroaches, as suite of characters including preference for drier or wetter
conditions) so that they could be expected to show different responses to habitat fragmentation.
We have chosen two cockroaches with a suite of ecological differences:
- Panesthia australis A common widely-distributed species that eats wood (and very large quantities of it at Buccleuch
SF) by eating tunnels through wood. Seems to prefer moister conditions that does the other species.
Not only is
P. australis flightless, but it goes out of its way to be so: at adult moult (aged as much as 10 years) these roaches produce wings but they chew them off at each other, before they are ever used.
- Laxta granicollis Somewhat less common but still quite common, and widely-distributed. Males of this species get
wings at their adult moult, and they do fly.
