Occurrence patterns of sympatric forest wallabies: assessing the influence of structural habitat attributes on the coexistence of and .

Background: We studied the occurrence of two sympatric wallabies, the red-necked pademelon () and the red-legged pademelon () in northeastern New South Wales, Australia in relation to structural habitat attributes. At our study site, both species inhabit closed forest environments and have overlapping distributions, but leaves the forest at night to graze adjacent grassy forest edges whereas remains within the forest and browses forest vegetation. The objectives of the study were to investigate how structural attributes of two forest types, wet sclerophyll forest and rainforest, relate to the fine-scale occurrence of these two wallaby species within the forested environment.

Creating wildlife habitat using artificial structures: a review of their efficacy and potential use in solar farms.

The biodiversity crisis is exacerbated by a growing human population modifying nearly three-quarters of the Earth's land surface area for anthropogenic uses. Habitat loss and modification represent the largest threat to biodiversity and finding ways to offset species decline has been a significant undertaking for conservation. Landscape planning and conservation strategies can enhance habitat suitability for biodiversity in human-modified landscapes.

Modeling mycorrhizal fungi dispersal by the mycophagous swamp wallaby ().

Despite the importance of mammal-fungal interactions, tools to estimate the mammal-assisted dispersal distances of fungi are lacking. Many mammals actively consume fungal fruiting bodies, the spores of which remain viable after passage through their digestive tract. Many of these fungi form symbiotic relationships with trees and provide an array of other key ecosystem functions.

The endangered Hastings River mouse () as a disperser of ectomycorrhizal fungi in eastern Australia.

Rodents are the most widespread and diverse order of vertebrate mycophagists and are key to the dispersal of mycorrhizal fungi. Rodents consume and subsequently disperse fungi through their feces on every continent except Antarctica. This study examines the fungal taxa consumed by the Hastings River mouse (), an endangered Australian endemic rodent from the family Muridae.

: A Field-Scouting Software for the Identification of Wildlife in Camera Trap Images.

We present a software tool for the automated identification of animal species from camera trap images is intended to be used by ecologists both in the field and in the office. Users can download a pre-trained model specific to their location of interest and then upload the images from a camera trap to a laptop or workstation will identify animals and other objects (e.g.

Conservation threats to the endangered golden langur (Trachypithecus geei, Khajuria 1956) in Bhutan.

Threat assessment is critical to species conservation and management planning, because prior identification and assessment of key threats to conservation planning can assist in developing appropriate interventions or strategies. Comprehensive threat assessments are currently lacking for many threatened primates. In this paper, we classify and rank all direct threats to the endangered golden langur (Trachypithecus geei) in Bhutan in order to provide a practical guide to future conservation of the species.

Population abundance and distribution of the endangered golden langur (Trachypithecus geei, Khajuria 1956) in Bhutan.

Reliable population estimates are lacking for many South Asian primate species, including the golden langur (Trachypithecus geei), which is endangered and restricted to Bhutan and northeast India. Although well studied in India, few studies exist on this species in Bhutan. In November 2017, we undertook a nationwide survey of golden langurs in Bhutan using double observers along trail-based transects in 17 blocks within its habitat, and modeled its distribution using MaxEnt.

Identifying conservation priorities for threatened Eastern Himalayan mammals.

To augment mammal conservation in the Eastern Himalayan region, we assessed the resident 255 terrestrial mammal species and identified the 50 most threatened species based on conservation status, endemism, range size, and evolutionary distinctiveness. By using the spatial analysis package letsR and the complementarity core-area method in the conservation planning software Zonation, we assessed the current efficacy of their protection and identified priority conservation areas by comparing protected areas (PAs), land cover, and global ecoregion 2017 maps at a 100 × 100 m spatial scale. The 50 species that were most threatened, geographically restricted, and evolutionarily distinct faced a greater extinction risk than globally nonthreatened and wide-ranging species and species with several close relatives.

Using GPS Technology to Understand Spatial and Temporal Activity of Kangaroos in a Peri-Urban Environment.

The increasing kangaroo occurrence in expanding peri-urban areas can be problematic when kangaroos become aggressive towards people and present a collision risk to motor vehicles. An improved understanding on kangaroo spatial and temporal activity patterns in the peri-urban environment is essential to manage kangaroo⁻human conflict. In this study, we used GPS telemetry to determine activity patterns of male Eastern Grey Kangaroos () in a peri-urban community on the north-coast of New South Wales, Australia.

Dog and Cat Interactions in a Remote Aboriginal Community.

This study examined dog and cat demographics, roaming behaviours, and interspecific interactions in a remote Aboriginal island community using multiple methods. Our results revealed temporal differences between the roaming behaviours of dogs, cats, and wildlife. Dogs showed crepuscular behaviour, being active around dawn (5:30 a.

Habitat correlates of the red panda in the temperate forests of Bhutan.

Anthropogenic activities and associated global climate change are threatening the biodiversity in the Himalayas against a backdrop of poor knowledge of the region's threatened species. The red panda (Ailurus fulgens) is a threatened mammal confined to the eastern Himalayas, and because of Bhutan's central location in the distributional range of red pandas, its forests are integral to the long-term viability of wild populations. Detailed habitat requirements of the red panda are largely speculative, and there is virtually no ecological information available on this species in Bhutan.

Fire-related changes in biomass of hypogeous sporocarps at foraging points used by a tropical mycophagous marsupial.

Changes in pre- and post-fire biomass of hypogeous fungal sporocarps remaining at locations where an endangered mycophagous marsupial, the northern bettong (Bettongia tropica), had foraged, were assessed in fire-prone sclerophyll forest in northeastern Australia. Low to medium intensity experimental fires were set during the late dry season in 1995 and 1996 and post-foraging biomass of sporocarps (expressed as biomass of sporocarps remaining at recent B. tropica diggings) was measured at unburnt and burnt sites at approximately six-week intervals for a period of 14 months.

Demography in relation to population density in two herbivorous marsupials: testing for source-sink dynamics versus independent regulation of population size.

We compared demography of populations along gradients of population density in two medium-sized herbivorous marsupials, the common brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula and the rufous bettong Aepyprymnus rufescens, to test for net dispersal from high density populations (acting as sources) to low density populations (sinks). In both species, population density was positively related to soil fertility, and variation in soil fertility produced large differences in population density of contiguous populations. We predicted that if source-sink dynamics were operating over this density gradient, we should find higher immigration rates in low-density populations, and positive relationships of measures of individual fitness--body condition, reproductive output, juvenile growth rates and survivorship--to population density.