Johnston, Stephen D., Hulse, Lyndal, Keeley, Tamara, Mucci, Albano, Seddon, Jennifer, and Maynard, Sam (2024) The Utility of the Koala Scat: A Scoping Review. Biology, 13 (7). 523.

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Abstract

The use of samples or scats to provide important ecological, genetic, disease and physiology details on free-range populations is gaining popularity as an alternative non-invasive methodology. Koala populations in SE Queensland and NSW have recently been listed as endangered and continue to face anthropomorphic and stochastic environmental impacts that could potentially lead to their extinction. This scoping review examines the current and potential utility of the koala scat to contribute data relevant to the assessment of koala conservation status and decision making. Although we demonstrate that there is great potential for this methodology in providing details for both individual wild animal and population biology (distribution, abundance, sex ratio, immigration/emigration, genetic diversity, evolutionary significant unit, disease epidemiology, nutrition, reproductive status and stress physiology), the calibre of this information is likely to be a function of the quality of the scat that is sampled.

Item ID:	85783
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2079-7737
Copyright Information:	© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Date Deposited:	10 Jun 2025 23:23
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310308 Terrestrial ecology @ 100%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 100%
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