Murray, Peter J., and Nevard, Timothy D. (2024) The Ecological Separation of Deer and Domestic, Feral and Native Mammals in Tropical Northern Australia—A Review. Animals, 14. 1576.

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Abstract

We explored the ecological and historical factors that led to formation of the unique guild of native and introduced mammalian herbivores between 5 and 1000 kg in northern Australia. Following the disappearance of large native herbivores about 46 kya, and until the arrival of Europeans and their livestock, the only herbivorous mammals were mid-sized endemic marsupial macropods, which continued to utilise the same vegetation as their much larger former neighbours. Only one species of contemporary native herbivore has an adult bodyweight approaching 100 kg, and for the past 150–200 years, the total biomass of introduced domestic and wild vertebrate herbivores has massively exceeded that of native herbivorous species. We conclude that the current guild of native and introduced mammalian herbivores differentially utilises the landscape ecologically. However, climate- and anthropogenically related changes due to fire, drought, flooding, predation and introduced weeds are likely to have significant impacts on the trajectory of their relative ecological roles and populations. Given their differing ecological and dietary characteristics, against this backdrop, it is unclear what the potential impact of the dispersal of deer species could have in northern Australia. We hence focus on whether sufficient knowledge exists against which the potential impacts of the range expansion of three deer species can be adequately assessed and have found a dearth of supporting evidence to inform appropriate sustainable management. We identify suitable research required to fill the identified knowledge gaps.

Item ID:	85848
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2076-2615
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:	17 Jun 2025 01:51
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310405 Evolutionary ecology @ 50% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310308 Terrestrial ecology @ 50%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 100%
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