Priority areas for conserving greater gliders in Queensland, Australia

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Norman, Patrick
Mackey, Brendan
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2023
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Abstract

Context: The southern and central greater glider (Petauroides volans) is a nationally listed endangered species in Australia. The species depends upon mature native forest providing critical habitat resources including tree hollows.

Aims: This study aimed to map and evaluate the tenure of patches of potential high-quality (core) habitat and corridors for the southern greater glider in Queensland.

Methods: Within greater glider habitat, we mapped 10 ranked classes of relative forest maturity using a model comprising remotely sensed metrics of canopy height, above-ground living biomass and canopy cover at a 30 m resolution. We also modelled the optimum movement corridors within and between habitat patches.

Key results: Results showed that 35% (4.943 million ha) of habitat was found in the more mature classes (Classes 7–9), which represent a proxy for associated limiting habitat resources, especially tree hollows. Mean patch size above a 1.6 ha threshold was found to be 122 ha and most patches (71%) were ≤10 ha, with 14 patches ≥100 000 ha. Freehold and leasehold lands hold 63.4% of the more mature habitat, multiple-use public forest 21.4% and nature conservation areas 12.8%. About half of the potential habitat is located on formally recognised Indigenous lands that represent different categories of Aboriginal ownership, management and other special rights.

Conclusions: The protection of mature forest patches and movement corridors is necessary for the conservation of the greater glider, a nationally listed threatened species.

Implications: Conservation interventions are needed, using a whole-of-landscape approach to protect core habitat and corridors from inappropriate land use.

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Pacific Conservation Biology

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© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.

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Zoology

Animal protection (incl. pests and pathogens)

Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences

Biological sciences

Environmental sciences

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Norman, P; Mackey, B, Priority areas for conserving greater gliders in Queensland, Australia, Pacific Conservation Biology, 2023

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