Endangered greater gliders have been fitted with trackers to reveal how they move through fire-scarred landscapes, and there could be implications for the forestry industry.
Ecologists have scaled enormous trees to catch the gliders and attach small, lightweight GPS collars that will record their nocturnal movements every half an hour, for a month.
The gliders, from the Tallaganda State Forest in NSW, will be caught again and freed of the devices, which will give researchers an unprecedented level of detail about how bushfires affect their movement.
Conservation scientist Kita Ashman, from WWF-Australia, took part in the field work and says there are a few theories about impacts on the species.
“They could expand their home range as they’re forced to travel further to find food and nesting hollows, or they could remain in unburnt patches within the burnt forest, resulting in a much smaller home range,” Dr Ashman said.
Greater gliders live mainly in treetops, and can cover up to 100 metres in a single glide.
When bushfires hit they can leave big holes in the canopy, making movement between trees difficult or impossible, and forcing the gliders to spend more time on the ground.
“How are they able to move in a canopy that's quite open and burnt? That’s what we're trying to understand,” said lead researcher Vivianna Miritis, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
“We also want to know if moving in a burnt forest exposes them to a higher risk of predation."
The tracking projects involves 15 gliders. Eight are from burnt parts of the forest, with their movements to be compared with the travels of seven from unburnt areas.
The world’s largest gliding marsupial was a threatened species before the Black Summer fires wiped out almost a third of its habitat. Its status has since worsened and it is now listed as endangered.
Despite the damage done by the fires, state-sanctioned logging has continued in pockets of glider habitat.
WWF believes knowledge gained from tracking gliders in unburnt forest could have implications for the forestry industry.
Forestry prescriptions for how much greater glider habitat can be logged are based on old data derived from manual VHF tracking with radio transmitters, which provide important but limited information.
“It is highly likely that greater glider movement and habitat requirements are being underestimated as a result,” Dr Ashman said.
“Saving these special animals is really important because they’re an indicator species. The presence of greater gliders is a sign of a healthy forest supporting a diverse range of species, and that’s what we all want to see."
The tracking project is a partnership between the University of Sydney and WWF-Australia.
