Conservation biology is primarily concerned with the amelioration of species decline. The Yellow-footed Rock-wallaby (Petrogale xanthopus xanthopus) is a medium sized Macropod that inhabits the semiarid rangelands of South Australia and New South Wales. Its conservation status is Vulnerable C2a(i). In this study, population modelling, spatially explicit habitat modelling and Population Viability Analysis (PVA) have been used to better understand the factors that affect the abundance and distribution of the P. x. xanthopus in South Australia. The processes that drive the population dynamics of a species operate at different scales. As such this research involves a collection of several inter-related and scale-specific empirical studies that provide insights about the population dynamics of P. x. xanthopus. Each of these studies captures environmental, demographic and behavioural process acting on the population at different scales. These include the analysis of relative abundance data derived from an aerial census, mark recapture sampling of demographic parameters in relation to rainfall patterns and a collection of habitat models derived at different scales using presence-absence data. Spatially explicit PVAs enable the population dynamics of a species to be modelled in space and time. Using these data, a PVA is conducted to explore and rank the importance of the factors that threaten this species and help guide their future monitoring and management. Movement is also a key issue when considering problems such as isolation and inbreeding. Given that little is known about the dispersal behaviour of this species, a range of different dispersal behaviours are also simulated in the PVA using random and non-random mating algorithms, to estimate the potential for inbreeding. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2004.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267540 |
| Creators | Lethbridge, Mark. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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