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Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical

Australia has experienced dramatic declines and extinctions of its native rodent species over the last 200 years, particularly in southern Australia. In the tropical savanna of northern Australia significant declines have occurred only in recent decades. The later onset of these declines suggests th...

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Autores principales: Lawes, Michael J., Fisher, Diana O., Johnson, Chris N., Blomberg, Simon P., Frank, Anke S. K., Fritz, Susanne A., McCallum, Hamish, VanDerWal, Jeremy, Abbott, Brett N., Legge, Sarah, Letnic, Mike, Thomas, Colette R., Thurgate, Nikki, Fisher, Alaric, Gordon, Iain J., Kutt, Alex
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4482364/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26111037
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130626
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author Lawes, Michael J.
Fisher, Diana O.
Johnson, Chris N.
Blomberg, Simon P.
Frank, Anke S. K.
Fritz, Susanne A.
McCallum, Hamish
VanDerWal, Jeremy
Abbott, Brett N.
Legge, Sarah
Letnic, Mike
Thomas, Colette R.
Thurgate, Nikki
Fisher, Alaric
Gordon, Iain J.
Kutt, Alex
author_facet Lawes, Michael J.
Fisher, Diana O.
Johnson, Chris N.
Blomberg, Simon P.
Frank, Anke S. K.
Fritz, Susanne A.
McCallum, Hamish
VanDerWal, Jeremy
Abbott, Brett N.
Legge, Sarah
Letnic, Mike
Thomas, Colette R.
Thurgate, Nikki
Fisher, Alaric
Gordon, Iain J.
Kutt, Alex
author_sort Lawes, Michael J.
collection PubMed
description Australia has experienced dramatic declines and extinctions of its native rodent species over the last 200 years, particularly in southern Australia. In the tropical savanna of northern Australia significant declines have occurred only in recent decades. The later onset of these declines suggests that the causes may differ from earlier declines in the south. We examine potential regional effects (northern versus southern Australia) on biological and ecological correlates of range decline in Australian rodents. We demonstrate that rodent declines have been greater in the south than in the tropical north, are strongly influenced by phylogeny, and are consistently greater for species inhabiting relatively open or sparsely vegetated habitat. Unlike in marsupials, where some species have much larger body size than rodents, body mass was not an important predictor of decline in rodents. All Australian rodent species are within the prey-size range of cats (throughout the continent) and red foxes (in the south). Contrary to the hypothesis that mammal declines are related directly to ecosystem productivity (annual rainfall), our results are consistent with the hypothesis that disturbances such as fire and grazing, which occur in non-rainforest habitats and remove cover used by rodents for shelter, nesting and foraging, increase predation risk. We agree with calls to introduce conservation management that limits the size and intensity of fires, increases fire patchiness and reduces grazing impacts at ecological scales appropriate for rodents. Controlling feral predators, even creating predator-free reserves in relatively sparsely-vegetated habitats, is urgently required to ensure the survival of rodent species, particularly in northern Australia where declines are not yet as severe as those in the south.
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spelling pubmed-44823642015-07-01 Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical Lawes, Michael J. Fisher, Diana O. Johnson, Chris N. Blomberg, Simon P. Frank, Anke S. K. Fritz, Susanne A. McCallum, Hamish VanDerWal, Jeremy Abbott, Brett N. Legge, Sarah Letnic, Mike Thomas, Colette R. Thurgate, Nikki Fisher, Alaric Gordon, Iain J. Kutt, Alex PLoS One Research Article Australia has experienced dramatic declines and extinctions of its native rodent species over the last 200 years, particularly in southern Australia. In the tropical savanna of northern Australia significant declines have occurred only in recent decades. The later onset of these declines suggests that the causes may differ from earlier declines in the south. We examine potential regional effects (northern versus southern Australia) on biological and ecological correlates of range decline in Australian rodents. We demonstrate that rodent declines have been greater in the south than in the tropical north, are strongly influenced by phylogeny, and are consistently greater for species inhabiting relatively open or sparsely vegetated habitat. Unlike in marsupials, where some species have much larger body size than rodents, body mass was not an important predictor of decline in rodents. All Australian rodent species are within the prey-size range of cats (throughout the continent) and red foxes (in the south). Contrary to the hypothesis that mammal declines are related directly to ecosystem productivity (annual rainfall), our results are consistent with the hypothesis that disturbances such as fire and grazing, which occur in non-rainforest habitats and remove cover used by rodents for shelter, nesting and foraging, increase predation risk. We agree with calls to introduce conservation management that limits the size and intensity of fires, increases fire patchiness and reduces grazing impacts at ecological scales appropriate for rodents. Controlling feral predators, even creating predator-free reserves in relatively sparsely-vegetated habitats, is urgently required to ensure the survival of rodent species, particularly in northern Australia where declines are not yet as severe as those in the south. Public Library of Science 2015-06-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4482364/ /pubmed/26111037 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130626 Text en © 2015 Lawes et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lawes, Michael J.
Fisher, Diana O.
Johnson, Chris N.
Blomberg, Simon P.
Frank, Anke S. K.
Fritz, Susanne A.
McCallum, Hamish
VanDerWal, Jeremy
Abbott, Brett N.
Legge, Sarah
Letnic, Mike
Thomas, Colette R.
Thurgate, Nikki
Fisher, Alaric
Gordon, Iain J.
Kutt, Alex
Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical
title Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical
title_full Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical
title_fullStr Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical
title_full_unstemmed Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical
title_short Correlates of Recent Declines of Rodents in Northern and Southern Australia: Habitat Structure Is Critical
title_sort correlates of recent declines of rodents in northern and southern australia: habitat structure is critical
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4482364/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26111037
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130626
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