Patterns of activity and travel by koalas in a disturbed urban landscape in Queensland

Philippa Kirsten Tacla; Benjamin James Barth; Sean Ian FitzGibbon; Amber Kristen Gillett; William Anthony Ellis

doi:10.1071/AM24044

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Patterns of activity and travel by koalas in a disturbed urban landscape in Queensland

Philippa Kirsten Tacla ^A , Benjamin James Barth ^B , Sean Ian FitzGibbon ^B , Amber Kristen Gillett ^B and William Anthony Ellis ^A ^B ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia.

^B School of the Environment, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: w.ellis@uq.edu.au

Handling Editor: Ross Goldingay

Australian Mammalogy 47, AM24044 https://doi.org/10.1071/AM24044

Submitted: 21 November 2024 Accepted: 11 January 2025 Published: 3 February 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Mammal Society. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Habitat loss and fragmentation threaten koala persistence in south-east Queensland, intensifying the challenges posed by climate change and disease to koala survival. Adaptation to modified landscapes may mediate species’ persistence, so we collected location and accelerometery data for 10 koalas in a changing landscape in the Moreton Bay region of Queensland, using remote global positioning system (GPS) collars and manual tracking. We investigated whether ambient temperature influenced how active koalas were and how far they moved, and compared area of use estimated by manual tracking and remote GPS uploads. Accelerometric data showed that koalas were more active at night, and GPS data showed that males moved further than females, but accelerometers measuring activity were not indicative of total distance travelled. Distance moved by koalas per day and night was greatest from May through August and least during March for both males and females. Remotely uploaded GPS locations described a not significantly larger total area of use by each koala compared to manual VHF tracking. There was no general trend in the relationship between day temperature and koala activity or distance moved.

Keywords: accelerometery, global positioning system, koala, Phascolarctos cinereus, radio tracking.

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