Wildlife and climate change: are robust strategies for Australian fauna possible?

Lunney, Daniel; Hutchings, Pat

doi:10.7882/fs.2012.026

Cited by 7 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Ellis et al (2010), working in central Queensland, found that lack of leaf moisture had an impact on koala survival during periods of high temperature. In Gunnedah, north-western NSW, a sustained heatwave during drought in 2009 caused the immediate death of an estimated one-quarter of the local koala population (Lunney et al 2012a). Our findings showed that extreme temperatures and drought have been affecting the Eden koala population, even though it is in a coastal region and at a higher latitude than other populations known to be affected by climate change.…”

Section: Climate Change Exacerbates Koala Declinementioning

confidence: 66%

“…Thus, there is an increasingly urgent need to minimise those threats that can be managed locally, such as logging of koala habitat, road traffic, fire and dogs across the region, so as to maximise the chances for the existing populations to survive and to enable individuals to recolonise currently unoccupied or rehabilitated habitat. Drought and heatwaves have been identified as having adverse impacts on koala populations in other regions (Gordon et al 1988;Ellis et al 2010;Seabrook et al 2011;Lunney et al 2012a). Drought was found to be a significant factor, contributing to an 80% reduction of koala numbers in western Queensland, especially on the semiarid western margin of the koala range where the remaining koalas were limited to riparian habitats (Seabrook et al 2011;Smith et al 2013).…”

Section: Climate Change Exacerbates Koala Declinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) has been affected by landuse change (Phillips 1990;Melzer et al 2000;McAlpine et al 2006;Rhodes et al 2011) and by climate change (Seabrook et al 2011;Lunney et al 2012a). In the present study, we examined both simultaneously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Several factors that reflect human population increase also threaten koala recovery, such as dog predation and vehicular collisions. The impact of climate change on koala populations is increasingly being recognised, particularly through increased drought and heatwaves (Seabrook et al 2011;Lunney et al 2012a), decreased leaf moisture (Ellis et al 2010) and decreased leaf nutrition (Lawler et al 1997;Gleadow et al 1998;Barton et al 2010;Moore et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extinction in Eden: identifying the role of climate change in the decline of the koala in south-eastern NSW

et al. 2014

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Context. Reviews of climate change in Australia have identified that it is imposing additional stresses on biodiversity, which is already under threat from multiple human impacts.Aims. The present study aimed to determine the contributions of several factors to the demise of the koala in the Eden region in south-eastern New South Wales and, in particular, to establish to what extent climate change may have exacerbated the decline.Methods. The study built on several community-based koala surveys in the Eden region since 1986, verified through interviews with survey respondents. Historical records as far back as the late 19th century, wildlife databases and field-based surveys were used to independently validate the community survey data and form a reliable picture of changes in the Eden koala population. Analysis of the community survey data used a logistic model to assess the contribution of known threats to koalas, including habitat loss measured as changes in foliage projective cover, fire, increases in the human population and climate change in the form of changes in temperature and rainfall, to the regional decline of this species.Key results. We found a marked, long-term shrinkage in the distribution of the koala across the Eden region. Our modelling demonstrated that a succession of multiple threats to koalas from land use (human population growth and habitat loss) and environmental change (temperature increase and drought) were significant contributors to this decline.Conclusions. Climate change, particularly drought and rising temperatures, has been a hitherto hidden factor that has been a major driver of the decline of the koala in the Eden region.Implications. Development of strategies to help fauna adapt to the changing climate is of paramount importance, particularly at a local scale.

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Section: Climate Change Exacerbates Koala Declinementioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Climate Change Exacerbates Koala Declinementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extinction in Eden: identifying the role of climate change in the decline of the koala in south-eastern NSW

et al. 2014

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“…Koalas select particular feed trees in order to meet their nutritional requirements Foley 2005, Marsh et al 2007), and these infl uence their movements across the landscape (Moore et al 2010). Th is gap is particularly concerning given the rising importance of climate change on folivore populations (Adams-Hosking et al 2011a, Seabrook et al 2011, Lunney et al 2012a. Non-feed trees are yet to be considered equally with feed trees when defi ning the suitability of habitat for koalas.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate‐mediated habitat selection in an arboreal folivore

Crowther¹,

Lunney²,

Lemon³

et al. 2013

Ecography

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Th e decisions that animals must make to achieve a balance between quantity and quality of resources become more diffi cult when their habitats are patchy and diff er greatly in quality across space and time. Koalas are a prime subject to study this problem because they have a specialised diet of eucalypt leaves and need to balance nutrient and water intake against toxins in the leaves, all of which can change with soil type and climate. Koalas are nocturnal and spend most of the day resting and therefore choose trees for reasons other than feeding, particularly for thermoregulation. We GPS-tracked 40 koalas over 3 yr to determine their shift in tree selection between day and night, and in relation to daily maximum temperature, in a patchy rural landscape in north-western NSW, Australia. Th e species, degree of shelter, diameter, height and elevation of each visited tree were recorded. We used generalised linear mixed eff ects models to compare tree use between day and night and maximum daily temperature. Koalas used more feed-trees during the night, and more shelter-trees during the day. Th ey also selected taller trees with more shelter in the day compared with night. As daytime temperatures rose, koalas increasingly selected taller trees at lower elevations. Our results demonstrate that koalas need taller trees, and non-feed species with shadier/denser foliage, to provide shelter from heat. Th is highlights the need both for the retention of taller, mature trees, such as remnant paddock trees, and the planting of both food and shelter trees to increase habitat area and connectivity across the landscape for arboreal species. Retaining and planting trees that provide optimum habitat will help arboreal folivores cope with the more frequent droughts and heatwaves expected with climate change.

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Reversing the decline of threatened koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations in New South Wales: Using genomics to define meaningful conservation goals

Lott,

Frankham,

Eldridge

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Genetic management is a critical component of threatened species conservation. Understanding spatial patterns of genetic diversity is essential for evaluating the resilience of fragmented populations to accelerating anthropogenic threats. Nowhere is this more relevant than on the Australian continent, which is experiencing an ongoing loss of biodiversity that exceeds any other developed nation. Using a proprietary genome complexity reduction-based method (DArTSeq), we generated a data set of 3,239 high quality Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) to investigate spatial patterns and indices of genetic diversity in the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), a highly specialised folivorous marsupial that is experiencing rapid and widespread population declines across much of its former range. Our findings demonstrate that current management divisions across the state of New South Wales (NSW) do not fully represent the distribution of genetic diversity among extant koala populations, and that care must be taken to ensure that translocation paradigms based on these frameworks do not inadvertently restrict gene flow between populations and regions that were historically interconnected. We also recommend that koala populations should be prioritised for conservation action based on the scale and severity of the threatening processes that they are currently faced with, rather than placing too much emphasis on their perceived value (e.g., as reservoirs of potentially adaptive alleles), as our data indicate that existing genetic variation in koalas is primarily partitioned amongst individual animals. As such, the extirpation of koalas from any part of their range represents a potentially critical reduction of genetic diversity for this iconic Australian species.

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Wildlife and climate change: are robust strategies for Australian fauna possible?

Cited by 7 publications

References 31 publications

Extinction in Eden: identifying the role of climate change in the decline of the koala in south-eastern NSW

Extinction in Eden: identifying the role of climate change in the decline of the koala in south-eastern NSW

Climate‐mediated habitat selection in an arboreal folivore

Reversing the decline of threatened koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations in New South Wales: Using genomics to define meaningful conservation goals

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