Subfossils suggest worse-than-realised losses of small-bodied mammals in northern Australia

Vikram Vakil; Jonathan Cramb; Gilbert Price; Julien Louys; John Stanisic; Gregory E. Webb

doi:10.1071/WR24149

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Subfossils suggest worse-than-realised losses of small-bodied mammals in northern Australia

Vikram Vakil

^A ^* , Jonathan Cramb ^B , Gilbert Price ^A , Julien Louys ^C , John Stanisic ^B and Gregory E. Webb

^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

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

^B Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.

^C Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Brisbane, Qld 4101, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: vikram.vakil@uqconnect.edu.au

Handling Editor: Sarah Legge

Wildlife Research 52, WR24149 https://doi.org/10.1071/WR24149

Submitted: 12 September 2024 Accepted: 24 December 2024 Published: 16 January 2025

© 2025 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

Examining Australia’s late Quaternary subfossil record can be valuable in assessing whether the current diversity of small-bodied mammals seen across some parts of northern Australia is ‘normal’. Such records are important for establishing baselines for measuring historic changes in communities today and into the future. These datasets are becoming increasingly important, given trajectories in current global climate change, and predicted habitat losses and other potential anthropogenic impacts.

Aims

The main aim of this study is to utilise the local subfossil record from north-eastern Australia to establish a natural baseline for assessing changes in small mammal communities post-European colonisation.

Methods

Subfossils of vertebrates and other taxa were recovered from surface deposits adjacent to cave entrances at Broken River, near Greenvale in north-eastern Queensland, and were subjected to taxonomic, taphonomic and statistical analyses. These were then compared with local faunal records from modern surveys to compare differences in faunal communities between past and present.

Key results

Radiocarbon dating showed that these subfossils are geologically young, dating to approximately the time of European colonisation. We provide evidence for the former presence of extinct species of hopping mice (Notomys spp.) and rabbit rats (Conilurus spp.) in the region. Additional locally extirpated taxa such as Cape York bandicoot (Isoodon peninsulae) and Shark Bay mouse (Pseudomys gouldii) demonstrated considerable range contractions since the deposits accumulated, compared with their current distribution. Independent evidence from subfossil land snails recovered from these deposits is, with two exceptions, all modern-day vine thicket, karst-dwelling species indicating a long-term maintenance of vine thicket habitat. Thus, the loss of several mammal species is unlikely to be the result of habitat loss.

Conclusions

Analysis of the surface deposits showed that local historic small-mammal communities were much more diverse than are the region’s extant faunas recorded by modern surveys. Many extinctions and extirpations evidently occurred prior to such faunas being recorded as local inhabitants of the region.

Implications

Our data suggested that post-European colonisation small-mammal losses are likely to be substantially worse than previously realised.

Keywords: conservation palaeontology, limestone caves, natural baselines, northern Australia, palaeoenvironment, severe losses, small mammals, subfossils.

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