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Spatiotemporal dynamics of habitat use by koalas: the checkerboard model

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Abstract

Animal movement patterns and use of space depend upon food and nonfood resources, as well as conspecific and heterospecific interactions, but models of habitat use often neglect to examine multiple factors and rarely include marsupials. We studied habitat use in an Australian population of koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) over a 6-year period in order to determine how koalas navigate their environment and partition limited patchy food and nonfood resources. Tree selection among koalas appears to be mediated by folar chemistry, but nonfood tree selection exerts a major impact on home range use due to thermoregulatory constraints. Koalas moved on a daily basis, during both day and night, but daytime resting site was not necessarily in the same location as nighttime feeding site. Koalas had substantial home range overlap in the near absence of resource sharing with less than 1% of trees located in areas of overlap used by multiple koalas. We suggest that koala spatiotemporal distribution and habitat use are probably based upon a community structure of individuals, with a checkerboard model best describing overlap in home range area but not in resource use. Nonfood refugia and social networks should be incorporated into models of animal range and habitat use.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Earthwatch participants, Central Queensland Koala Volunteers, G. Tucker, and D. Clifton for assistance in data collection. We thank J. Tobey and G. Hamilton for input on the text, and S. Walls and G. Nolan for help with the ranging and statistical analysis. Field work was approved by the Central Queensland University Animal Ethics Committee, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Zoological Society of San Diego Animal Care and Use Committee. Funds for research have been provided by Earthwatch, the Ocelots Grant Program, and the Hugh and Emily Morris Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species, Zoological Society of San Diego, 15600 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido, CA, 92027, USA

    William A. H. Ellis & Fred B. Bercovitch

  2. School of Integrative Biology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Australia

    William A. H. Ellis

  3. Koala Research Center, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia

    Alistair Melzer

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  1. William A. H. Ellis
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  2. Alistair Melzer
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Correspondence to Fred B. Bercovitch.

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Communicated by P.B. Banks

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Ellis, W.A.H., Melzer, A. & Bercovitch, F.B. Spatiotemporal dynamics of habitat use by koalas: the checkerboard model. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 63, 1181–1188 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-009-0761-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-009-0761-2

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