Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

13 – Insights from multi-species mammal monitoring programs in the Upper Warren^185

resources and diet (Zosky 2011), introduced predators (Wayne 2008; Marlow et al.
2015) and disease (e.g. Pacioni 2010; Botero et al. 2013; Thompson et al. 2014).
Based on the available associative evidence, predation, principally from feral cats,
is considered the most likely common factor driving the declines of many of the
native mammals. Disease, drought-driven declines in food resources and longer
term climate change are also considered likely factors involved in the declines of
particular species only. However, the cause(s) of decline remain to be definitively
and rigorously tested in all cases (Wayne et al. 2017).

Multiple benefits of long-term monitoring

Monitoring clearly demonstrated the nature of population changes of many of the
mammals in the UWR. These monitoring results were the principal catalyst and

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013

Proporon of maximum recor

ded

abundanc

e

P. occidentalis

N. eugenii

N. irma

M. fuliginosus

Foxbaing from 1997 was quarterlyand broadscale

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Proporon of maximum rec

orde

d abundanc

e

O. cuniculus

V. vulpes

F. catus

Foxbaing from 2010 was monthly in

Perup core

Foxbaing from 1997 was quarterlyand broadscale

(d)

(e)

Fig. 13.5. (continued) Summary of changing abundance (expressed as the proportion of peak abundance)
of mammal species in the Upper Warren region, Western Australia. (d) spotlight transects (n = 2–3); (e)
sand-plot arrays (n = 5–6).