Get reliable rangeland science

Regional variation in species-habitat relationships, where species have natural geographic ranges extending over multiple biogeographic regions, has seldom been studied (Whittingham et al. 2005) and simple conservation rules, uniformly applied over multiple regions, may be ineffective for these species. The koala is one such species. It is widely distributed in eastern Australia, extending over 30 bioregions from Queensland to South Australia. Studies in southern and eastern Australia have reported sensitivity to landscape change, urbanisation and amount and connectivity of high quality habitat (Rhodes et al. 2006; McAlpine et al. 2006a; 2006b). Populations are in decline due to habitat loss and fragmentation, dog attacks, vehicle collisions and disease (ANZECC 1998). However, we have little idea whether these relationships hold generally across the koala’s broad geographic range and management of western koala populations based purely on data from eastern populations is a risky strategy. ...