Song of the Cricket enhances biodiversity through modular floating islands designed as portable breeding stations for targeted rehabilitation sites. By improving food, water, and nesting conditions, these islands support small, isolated populations of key species, particularly crickets, which help catalyse food webs. Focusing on lower trophic levels, the islands create temporary habitats to promote reproduction and breeding across multiple lifecycles while reducing predation and disease.
Song of the Cricket focuses on the endangered Zeuneriana marmorata (Adriatic Marbled Bush-Cricket), rediscovered in 1992. It will build on translocations in 2021 that showed population growth by demonstrating low-cost, durable floating islands where mating cricket pairs can breed and create starter populations that can be redistributed into viable habitats across Venice Lagoon. It also includes mesocosms designed as experiments to explore how habitat edges and planting conditions impact survival and growth, informed by research on Australian grasshoppers.
Song of the Cricket will integrate research and monitoring into the exhibition, comparing the success of island habitats versus cricket cages. The crickets’ song will be featured as a bioindicator of ecosystem health, with sound garden events allowing Venetians to hear the cricket’s song for the first time in over a century. Discussions with city officials and stakeholders will inform the long-term sustainability of the project, culminating in the Venice Lagoon Food Web Rehabilitation Program: a program to create habitat patches that support breeding populations and contribute to ecosystem resilience, potentially serving as a model for other biodiversity rehabilitation efforts.
Song of the Cricket
University of Melbourne with: Alexander J. Felson (Urban Ecology and Design Lab, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne), Filippo Maria Buzzetti (Fondazione Museo Civico di Rovereto/IC Parise di Arzignano), Miriama Young (Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne), Theresa Jones (School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne), Enzo Moretto (Esapolis Grande Museo Vivente degli Insetti), Will Carter (Yiradyuri / Ngunnawal, Indigenous Partnerships, University of Melbourne), Alice Kesminas (Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Melbourne), Jagannath Aryal (Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Melbourne), Michael Kearney (School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne), Ary Hoffmann (School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne)
