Burrow use by bilbies in temperate South Australia
Karleah K. Berris A F , Steven J. B. Cooper B C , William G. Breed A , Joshua R. Berris D and Susan M. Carthew E
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia.
B Evolutionary Biology Unit, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
C Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.
D PO Box 919, Kingscote, SA 5223, Australia.
E Research Institute for Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina, NT 0909, Australia.
F Corresponding author. Email: karleah.trengove@gmail.com
Australian Mammalogy 44(2) 256-265 https://doi.org/10.1071/AM20027
Submitted: 29 March 2020 Accepted: 24 August 2021 Published: 22 September 2021
Abstract
Remnant natural populations of greater bilbies (Macrotis lagotis) are confined to the Australian arid zone where bilbies construct and shelter in multiple burrows within their home range. We investigated burrow use behaviour of bilbies in a translocated population in temperate southern Australia to determine if behaviour differed in this climatic zone. Over a 12 month period, 43 adult bilbies at Venus Bay Conservation Park were spool-and-line tracked to 118 burrows. Active burrow density was 0.55 per ha, and bilbies at the site used multiple burrows (up to 13 for males and 8 for females) and regularly moved between diurnal burrows. Male bilbies had significantly larger burrow ranges (10.2 ± 5.8 ha, MCP100, mean ± s.d.) than females (2.6 ± 1.8 ha), and were similar in size to those recorded in an arid zone population. Males’ burrow ranges tended to overlap with the burrow range of multiple other males and females. The density of burrows in the current study suggests that bilby burrows were likely to have been a common landscape feature within the southern parts of the species range prior to their local extinction. Further research is needed to determine the impact of the loss of bilby burrows from southern Australia on other burrow commensal species.
Keywords: behaviour, burrow density, ecosystem engineers, greater bilbies, Macrotis lagotis, marsupial, threatened species, Thylacomyidae.
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