Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 374, Issue 1788, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0221
Keywords
Burramys; translocation; conservation introduction; fossil; Australia
Categories
Funding
- Australian Research Council [DP170101420]
- UNSW Sydney
- Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service
- Environment Australia
- Waanyi Nation
- Queensland Museum
- Riversleigh Society Inc.
- Riversleigh Community Scientific Advisory Committee
- CREATE Fund at UNSW
- Outback at Isa
- Mount Isa City Council
- Alan Rackham and the Rackham family
- Australian Ecosystems Foundation
- NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service
- Australian Geographic Society
- National Parks Association
- UNSW Foundation
- Royal Zoological Society of NSW
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The fossil record provides important information about changes in species diversity, distribution, habitat and abundance through time. As we understand more about these changes, it becomes possible to envisage a wider range of options for translocations in a world where sustainability of habitats is under increasing threat. The Critically Endangered alpine/subalpine mountain pygmy-possum, Burramys parvus (Marsupialia, Burramyidae), is threatened by global heating. Using conventional strategies, there would be no viable pathway for stopping this iconic marsupial from becoming extinct. The fossil record, however, has inspired an innovative strategy for saving this species. This lineage has been represented over 25 Myr by a series of species always inhabiting lowland, wet forest palaeocommunities. These fossil deposits have been found in what is now the Tirari Desert, South Australia (24 Ma), savannah woodlands of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland (approx. 24-15 Ma) and savannah grasslands of Hamilton, Victoria (approx. 4 Ma). This palaeoecological record has led to the proposal overviewed here to construct a lowland breeding facility with the goal of monitoring the outcome of introducing this possum back into the pre-Quaternary core habitat for the lineage. If this project succeeds, similar approaches could be considered for other climate-change-threatened Australian species such as the southern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne corroboree) and the western swamp tortoise (Pseudemydura umbrina). This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?'
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