Register      Login
Pacific Conservation Biology Pacific Conservation Biology Society
A journal dedicated to conservation and wildlife management in the Pacific region.
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Determining the geographic distribution and ecology of the Critically Endangered Kaputar rock skink (Egernia roomi)

Nicholas Gale https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1472-4037 A * , Jules E. Farquhar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1894-7580 B , Amelia Carlesso https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3738-395X A , Kylie Robert https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8554-8440 A § and David G. Chapple https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7720-6280 B §
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Life Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Vic., Australia.

B School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.

* Correspondence to: n.pgale1@gmail.com

Handling Editor: Dan Lunney

Pacific Conservation Biology 30, PC24001 https://doi.org/10.1071/PC24001
Submitted: 4 January 2024  Accepted: 3 May 2024  Published: 20 May 2024

© 2024 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)

Abstract

Context

Knowledge of species’ distribution and habitat associations is fundamental for conservation planning and management, especially in the context of range-restricted taxa. The Critically Endangered Kaputar rock skink (Egernia roomi) is a high elevation species that is restricted to the Nandewar Ranges (New South Wales, Australia). The species was not formally recognised until 2019, with its distribution, ecology, and threats poorly known.

Aims

To determine the geographical distribution of the Kaputar rock skink and explore its ecology and threats.

Methods

We performed surveys throughout high elevation regions of Mount Kaputar National Park, targeting suitable habitat for the Kaputar rock skink (rock outcrops and plateaux). Species distributional modelling (SDM) was used to identify potentially suitable habitat outside of our search areas.

Key results

We detected the species at all historical record sites and at 15 new sites, increasing the species’ known area of occupancy (AOO) four-fold (from 8 km2 to 40 km2), and elevational range three-fold (from 1360–1480 m to 1147–1509 m).

Conclusion

The AOO for the species now exceeds the IUCN Red List threshold for Critically Endangered, but falls within the range for Endangered under Criterion B. Our SDMs indicated that all predicted suitable habitat for the species falls within the region that we surveyed in this study.

Implications

Our study provides valuable information on the geographic range of a threatened lizard species and evaluates the potential impact of large-scale fires on the persistence of the species.

Keywords: conservation status, Egernia roomi, endemic, IUCN Red List, Mount Kaputar, Nandewar bioregion, skink, species distribution models.

References

Abbott MJ (1969) Petrology of the Nandewar Volcano, N.S.W., Australia. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 20, 115-134.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Adams MA, Shadmanroodposhti M, Neumann M (2020) Causes and consequences of Eastern Australia’s 2019–20 season of mega-fires: a broader perspective. Global Change Biology 26, 3756-3758.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Aiello-Lammens ME, Boria RA, Radosavljevic A, Vilela B, Anderson RP (2015) spThin: an R package for spatial thinning of species occurrence records for use in ecological niche models. Ecography 38, 541-545.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Anderson RP, Gonzalez I, Jr. (2011) Species-specific tuning increases robustness to sampling bias in models of species distributions: an implementation with Maxent. Ecological Modelling 222, 2796-2811.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Araújo MB, Guisan A (2006) Five (or so) challenges for species distribution modelling. Journal of Biogeography 33, 1677-1688.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Chapple DG (2003) Ecology, life-history, and behavior in the Australian Scincid genus Egernia, with comments on the evolution of complex sociality in lizards. Herpetological Monographs 17, 145-180.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Chapple DG, Roll U, Böhm M, Aguilar R, Amey AP, Austin CC, Baling M, Barley AJ, Bates MF, Bauer AM, Blackburn DG, Bowles P, Brown RM, Chandramouli SR, Chirio L, Cogger H, Colli GR, Conradie W, Couper PJ, Cowan MA, Craig MD, Das I, Datta-Roy A, Dickman CR, Ellis RJ, Fenner AL, Ford S, Ganesh SR, Gardner MG, Geissler P, Gillespie GR, Glaw F, Greenlees MJ, Griffith OW, Grismer LL, Haines ML, Harris DJ, Hedges SB, Hitchmough RA, Hoskin CJ, Hutchinson MN, Ineich I, Janssen J, Johnston GR, Karin BR, Keogh JS, Kraus F, LeBreton M, Lymberakis P, Masroor R, McDonald PJ, Mecke S, Melville J, Melzer S, Michael DR, Miralles A, Mitchell NJ, Nelson NJ, Nguyen TQ, de Campos Nogueira C, Ota H, Pafilis P, Pauwels OSG, Perera A, Pincheira-Donoso D, Reed RN, Ribeiro-Júnior MA, Riley JL, Rocha S, Rutherford PL, Sadlier RA, Shacham B, Shea GM, Shine R, Slavenko A, Stow A, Sumner J, Tallowin OJS, Teale R, Torres-Carvajal O, Trape J-F, Uetz P, Ukuwela KDB, Valentine L, Van Dyke JU, van Winkel D, Vasconcelos R, Vences M, Wagner P, Wapstra E, While GM, Whiting MJ, Whittington CM, Wilson S, Ziegler T, Tingley R, Meiri S (2021) Conservation status of the world’s skinks (Scincidae): taxonomic and geographic patterns in extinction risk. Biological Conservation 257, 109101.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Clarke PJ (2002) Habitat islands in fire-prone vegetation: do landscape features influence community composition? Journal of Biogeography 29, 677-684.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Coelho MTP, Diniz-Filho JA, Rangel TF (2019) A parsimonious view of the parsimony principle in ecology and evolution. Ecography 42, 968-976.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Copeland LM, Backhouse GN (2022) ‘Guide to native orchids of NSW and ACT.’ (CSIRO Publishing: Collingwood, Australia)

Cox N, Young BE, Bowles P, Fernandez M, Marin J, Rapacciuolo G, Bohm M, Brooks TM, Hedges SB, Hilton-Taylor C, Hoffmann M, Jenkins RKB, Tognelli MF, Alexander GJ, Allison A, Ananjeva NB, Auliya M, Avila LJ, Chapple DG, Cisneros-Heredia DF, Cogger HG, Colli GR, de Silva A, Eisemberg CC, Els J, Fong G. A, Grant TD, Hitchmough RA, Iskandar DT, Kidera N, Martins M, Meiri S, Mitchell NJ, Molur S, Nogueira CdC, Ortiz JC, Penner J, Rhodin AGJ, Rivas GA, Rodel M-O, Roll U, Sanders KL, Santos-Barrera G, Shea GM, Spawls S, Stuart BL, Tolley KA, Trape J-F, Vidal MA, Wagner P, Wallace BP, Xie Y (2022) A global reptile assessment highlights shared conservation needs of tetrapods. Nature 605, 285-290.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

DAWE (2020) Australian google earth engine burnt area map. A rapid, national approach to fire severity mapping. Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Commonwealth of Australia. Available at https://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/google-earth-engine-burnt-area-map-geebam

DCCEEW (2022) Species profile and threats database: Egernia roomi. Available at https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=90714

Di Cola V, Broennimann O, Petitpierre B, Breiner FT, D’Amen M, Randin C, Engler R, Pottier J, Pio D, Dubuis A, Pellissier L, Mateo RG, Hordijk W, Salamin N, Guisan A (2017) ecospat: an R package to support spatial analyses and modeling of species niches and distributions. Ecography 40, 774-787.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Dormann CF, Elith J, Bacher S, Buchmann C, Carl G, Carré G, Marquéz JRG, Gruber B, Lafourcade B, Leitão PJ, Münkemüller T, McClean C, Osborne PE, Reineking B, Schröder B, Skidmore AK, Zurell D, Lautenbach S (2013) Collinearity: a review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance. Ecography 36, 27-46.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

DPIE (2021) Mount Kaputar National Park Plan of Management. State of NSW and Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. Available at https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/Parks-plans-of-management/mount-kaputar-national-park-plan-of-management-210368.pdf

Dubey S, Shine R (2010) Restricted dispersal and genetic diversity in populations of an endangered montane lizard (Eulamprus leuraensis, Scincidae). Molecular Ecology 19, 886-897.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Duckett PE, Morgan MH, Stow AJ (2012) Tree-dwelling populations of the skink Egernia striolata aggregate in groups of close kin. Copeia 2012, 130-134.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Elith J, Phillips SJ, Hastie T, Dudík M, Chee YE, Yates CJ (2011) A statistical explanation of MaxEnt for ecologists. Diversity and Distributions 17, 43-57.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Fitzsimons JA, Michael DR (2017) Rocky outcrops: a hard road in the conservation of critical habitats. Biological Conservation 211, 36-44.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Gardner MG, Hugall AF, Donnellan SC, Hutchinson MN, Foster R (2008) Molecular systematics of social skinks: phylogeny and taxonomy of the Egernia group (Reptilia: Scincidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 154, 781-794.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Hernandez PA, Graham CH, Master LL, Albert DL (2006) The effect of sample size and species characteristics on performance of different species distribution modeling methods. Ecography 29, 773-785.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Hijmans R, van Etten J, Mattiuzzi M, Sumner M, Greenberg J, Lamigueiro O, Bevan A, Racine E, Shortridge A (2013) Raster package in R. Available at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/raster/index.html

Hunter J (2015) Vegetation and flora of Mt Kaputar National Park. Research Gate. Available at https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.3135.3444

IPBES (2019) Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Available at https://www.ipbes.net/global-assessment

IPCC (2023) Climate change 2023: synthesis report. Available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/

IUCN (2022) Guidelines for using the IUCN red list categories and criteria. Version 15. Available at https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/redlistguidelines

Legge S, Woinarski JCZ, Scheele BC, Garnett ST, Lintermans M, Nimmo DG, Whiterod NS, Southwell DM, Ehmke G, Buchan A, Gray J, Metcalfe DJ, Page M, Rumpff L, van Leeuwen S, Williams D, Ahyong ST, Chapple DG, Cowan M, Hossain MA, Kennard M, Macdonald S, Moore H, Marsh J, McCormack RB, Michael D, Mitchell N, Newell D, Raadik TA, Tingley R, Boer M (2022a) Rapid assessment of the biodiversity impacts of the 2019–2020 Australian megafires to guide urgent management intervention and recovery and lessons for other regions. Diversity and Distributions 28, 571-591.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Legge S, Rumpff L, Woinarski JCZ, Whiterod NS, Ward M, Southwell DG, Scheele BC, Nimmo DG, Lintermans M, Geyle HM, Garnett ST, Hayward-Brown B, Ensbey M, Ehmke G, Ahyong ST, Blackmore CJ, Bower DS, Brizuela-Torres D, Burbidge AH, Burns PA, Butler G, Catullo R, Chapple DG, Dickman CR, Doyle KE, Ferris J, Fisher D, Gallagher R, Gillespie GR, Greenlees MJ, Hohnen R, Hoskin CJ, Hunter D, Jolly C, Kennard M, King A, Kuchinke D, Law B, Lawler I, Lawler S, Loyn R, Lunney D, Lyon J, MacHunter J, Mahony M, Mahony S, McCormack RB, Melville J, Menkhorst P, Michael D, Mitchell N, Mulder E, Newell D, Pearce L, Raadik TA, Rowley JJL, Sitters H, Spencer R, Valavi R, West M, Wilkinson DP, Zukowski S, Nolan R (2022b) The conservation impacts of ecological disturbance: time-bound estimates of population loss and recovery for fauna affected by the 2019–2020 Australian megafires. Global Ecology and Biogeography 31, 2085-2104.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Mace GM (2004) The role of taxonomy in species conservation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 359, 711-719.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

McCain CM, Colwell RK (2011) Assessing the threat to montane biodiversity from discordant shifts in temperature and precipitation in a changing climate: climate change risk for montane vertebrates. Ecology Letters 14, 1236-1245.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Merow C, Smith MJ, Silander JA, Jr (2013) A practical guide to MaxEnt for modeling species’ distributions: what it does, and why inputs and settings matter. Ecography 36, 1058-1069.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Michael DR, Lindenmayer DB, Cunningham RB (2010) Managing rock outcrops to improve biodiversity conservation in Australian agricultural landscapes. Ecological Management & Restoration 11, 43-50.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Murphy MJ (1996) A possible threat to the Broad-headed Snake Hoplocephalus bungaroides: degradation of habitat by the Feral Goat Capra hircus. Herpetofauna 26, 37-38.
| Google Scholar |

Murphy MJ, Murphy JK (2015) Survey of the reptiles and amphibians of Merriwindi State Conservation Area in the Pilliga forest of northern inland New South Wales. Australian Zoologist 37, 517-528.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Murphy MJ, Shea M (2015) Survey of the land snail fauna (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) of Mount Kaputar National Park in northern inland New South Wales, Australia, including a description of the listing of Australia’s first legally recognised endangered land snail community. Molluscan Research 35, 51-64.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Murphy MJ, Murphy JK, Faris JC, Mulholland MJ (2019) Marooned on an extinct volcano: the conservation status of four endemic land snails (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) at Mount Kaputar, New South Wales. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 141, 33-44.
| Google Scholar |

Naimi B, Hamm NAS, Groen TA, Skidmore AK, Toxopeus AG (2014) Where is positional uncertainty a problem for species distribution modelling? Ecography 37, 191-203.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Nimmo DG, Carthey AJR, Jolly CJ, Blumstein DT (2021) Welcome to the Pyrocene: animal survival in the age of megafire. Global Change Biology 27, 5684-5693.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee (2021) Final determination of the Kaputar Rock Skink Egernia roomi as critically endangered. Available at https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Animals-and-plants/Scientific-Committee/Determinations/2021/final-determination-kaputar-rock-skink-egernia-roomi-critically-endangered-species.pdf

Pecl GT, Araújo MB, Bell JD, Blanchard J, Bonebrake TC, Chen I-C, Clark TD, Colwell RK, Danielsen F, Evengård B, Falconi L, Ferrier S, Frusher S, Garcia RA, Griffis RB, Hobday AJ, Janion-Scheepers C, Jarzyna MA, Jennings S, Lenoir J, Linnetved HI, Martin VY, McCormack PC, McDonald J, Mitchell NJ, Mustonen T, Pandolfi JM, Pettorelli N, Popova E, Robinson SA, Scheffers BR, Shaw JD, Sorte CJB, Strugnell JM, Sunday JM, Tuanmu M-N, Vergés A, Villanueva C, Wernberg T, Wapstra E, Williams SE (2017) Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: impacts on ecosystems and human well-being. Science 355, eaai9214.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Petitpierre B, Broennimann O, Kueffer C, Daehler C, Guisan A (2017) Selecting predictors to maximize the transferability of species distribution models: lessons from cross-continental plant invasions. Global Ecology and Biogeography 26, 275-287.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Phillips SJ, Dudík M (2008) Modeling of species distributions with Maxent: new extensions and a comprehensive evaluation. Ecography 31, 161-175.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Phillips SJ, Anderson RP, Schapire RE (2006) Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions. Ecological Modelling 190, 231-259.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Powney GD, Grenyer R, Orme CDL, Owens IPF, Meiri S (2010) Hot, dry and different: Australian lizard richness is unlike that of mammals, amphibians and birds. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19, 386-396.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Riley JL, Noble DWA, Stow AJ, Bolton PE, While GM, Dennison S, Byrne RW, Whiting MJ (2021) Socioecology of the Australian Tree Skink (Egernia striolata). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9, 722455.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Russell BG, Letnic M, Fleming PJS (2011) Managing feral goat impacts by manipulating their access to water in the rangelands. The Rangeland Journal 33, 143-152.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Sadlier RA, Frankham GJ, Beatson CA, Eldridge MDB, Rowley JJL (2019) Genetic evidence in support of the recognition of the Kaputar Rock Skink, one of New South Wales’ most range-restricted vertebrate species. Records of the Australian Museum 71, 183-197.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Santos JL, Sitters H, Keith DA, Geary WL, Tingley R, Kelly LT (2022) A demographic framework for understanding fire-driven reptile declines in the ‘land of the lizards’. Global Ecology and Biogeography 31, 2105-2119.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Sass S, Swan G (2014) Factors influencing habitat occupancy of the endangered Barrier Range dragon (Ctenophorus mirrityana: Agamidae). Herpetological Review 45, 213-216.
| Google Scholar |

Scheele BC, Legge S, Armstrong DP, Copley P, Robinson N, Southwell D, Westgate MJ, Lindenmayer DB (2018) How to improve threatened species management: an Australian perspective. Journal of Environmental Management 223, 668-675.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Sekercioglu CH, Schneider SH, Fay JP, Loarie SR (2008) Climate change, elevational range shifts, and bird extinctions. Conservation Biology 22, 140-150.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Senior AF, Chapple DG, Atkins ZS, Clemann N, Gardner MG, While GM, Wong BBM (2021) Agonistic behavioural asymmetry in two species of montane lizard that exhibit elevational replacement. Landscape Ecology 36, 863-876.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Shea GM (1987) Comment on the proposed suppression for nomenclatural purposes of three works by Richard W Wells and C. Ross Wellington. The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 44, 257-261.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Shea GM, Sadlier RA (1999) A catalogue of the non-fossil amphibian and reptile type specimens in the collection of the Australian Museum: types currently, previously and purportedly present. Technical Reports of the Australian Museum 15, 1-91.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Swan G, Sadlier R, Shea G (2022) ‘A field guide to reptiles of New South Wales.’ 4th edn. (Reed New Holland)

Torkkola JJ, Chauvenet ALM, Hines H, Oliver PM (2022) Distributional modelling, megafires and data gaps highlight probable underestimation of climate change risk for two lizards from Australia’s montane rainforests. Austral Ecology 47, 365-379.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |

Waldron A, Miller DC, Redding D, Mooers A, Kuhn TS, Nibbelink N, Roberts JT, Tobias JA, Gittleman JL (2017) Reductions in global biodiversity loss predicted from conservation spending. Nature 551, 364-367.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Ward M, Tulloch AIT, Radford JQ, Williams BA, Reside AE, Macdonald SL, Mayfield HJ, Maron M, Possingham HP, Vine SJ, O’Connor JL, Massingham EJ, Greenville AC, Woinarski JCZ, Garnett ST, Lintermans M, Scheele BC, Carwardine J, Nimmo DG, Lindenmayer DB, Kooyman RM, Simmonds JS, Sonter LJ, Watson JEM (2020) Impact of 2019–2020 mega-fires on Australian fauna habitat. Nature Ecology and Evolution 4, 1321-1326.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Warren DL, Seifert SN (2011) Ecological niche modeling in Maxent: the importance of model complexity and the performance of model selection criteria. Ecological Applications 21, 335-342.
| Crossref | Google Scholar | PubMed |

Wells RW, Wellington CR (1985) A classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia. Australian Journal of Herpetology Supplementary Series 1, 1-61.
| Google Scholar |

Wüster W, Thomson SA, O’Shea M, Kaiser H (2021) Confronting taxonomic vandalism in biology: conscientious community self-organization can preserve nomenclatural stability. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 133, 645-670.
| Crossref | Google Scholar |