Ecosystem Management, School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia.
Kangaroo Island Landscape Board, Kingscote, SA, 5223, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 25;12(1):12688. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-16982-x.
Native predators are increasingly exposed to habitat loss and fragmentation globally. When developing conservation and management strategies, it is important to determine whether fragmented landscapes can still support similar predator densities to intact areas, and thereby constitute important habitat for these species. The spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) is an endangered Australian mesopredator that is often considered to be forest-dependent. While quolls are known to occur in some fragmented forest landscapes, it is unclear whether these areas represent sub-optimal habitat where quolls merely persist, or whether quolls can still occur at densities similar to those observed in intact forest landscapes. We used camera traps to detect quolls in both a fragmented and intact forested site, over three years. We used each quoll's unique pelage pattern to identify individual quolls and estimate population density at each site. We were able to assign more than 94% of quoll image sequences across both sites to identify 173 individuals during the study. Density estimates of 0.13-0.66 quolls per km at the fragmented site were comparable to estimates of 0.28-0.48 quolls per km at the intact site. Our results highlight the importance of retaining and protecting forest fragments for the conservation of endangered quoll populations.
在全球范围内，本地捕食者越来越多地面临栖息地丧失和破碎化的威胁。在制定保护和管理策略时，确定破碎化的景观是否仍能支持类似的捕食者密度，并因此构成这些物种的重要栖息地非常重要。斑点长尾袋狸（Dasyurus maculatus）是一种濒危的澳大利亚中型捕食者，通常被认为是依赖森林的物种。虽然已知袋狸存在于一些破碎的森林景观中，但尚不清楚这些区域是否代表仅能维持袋狸生存的次优栖息地，还是袋狸仍能以类似于完整森林景观中观察到的密度存在。我们使用相机陷阱在三年内对一个破碎化和一个完整的森林区域进行了袋狸的检测。我们利用每只袋狸独特的皮毛图案来识别个体，并估计每个地点的种群密度。在整个研究过程中，我们能够将两个地点的超过 94%的袋狸图像序列分配给 173 只个体。破碎化地点的密度估计值为每公里 0.13-0.66 只袋狸，与完整地点的每公里 0.28-0.48 只袋狸的估计值相当。我们的研究结果强调了保留和保护森林碎片对濒危袋狸种群保护的重要性。
