In the last post, we talked a bit about what home ranges are ... now it's time to see what the home ranges of urban koalas look like!
 |
| The home range of one (female) koala. Note there's a road between the 2 areas she inhabits! |
As part of her honours research, Ami tracked the home ranges of 6 koalas here in Brisbane. She can use this data to extrapolate to the wider koala population - her study basically
gives us an idea of what koala life is like in the city.
gives us an idea of what koala life is like in the city.
Here's the kind of information that Ami obtained:
- Home range sizes for urban koalas
- Movement patterns
- Proximity to roads - and whether individuals crossed roads
- Use of bushland versus residential property
We need these data to know what kinds of dangers koalas face in their 'home' environments. Cars and dogs are two of the greatest threats to urban koalas, so it's important to know if koalas are moving around homes and across roadways. The next step will be to integrate this information into an urban conservation plan.
Well, and more research, of course.
Here's some of what Ami found:
- The home ranges of urban koalas were typically around 3 hectares in size. That's about the size of 6 soccer fields (But don't talk to us about soccer today - Australia just missed out on the World Cup 2022! Very sad.)
- Many koalas were moving between trees in residential areas - and moving is when they are most vulnerable, as they have to descend the tree and walk along the ground to the next one.
- Koalas moved a lot adjacent to roadways, but only one individual seemed to cross the road regularly.
We've still got more to cover in Ami's thesis, but that's for another time!
Written by Amanda Niehaus, PhD on behalf of the Koala Ecology Group
