RIEL News
Preserving genetic diversity of endangered rabbit-rats
Bryn Pickering focused closely on brush-tailed rabbit-rats (Conilurus penicillatus) during his honours year. In particular, he aimed to evaluate the viability of a population of rabbit-rats that were translocated from mainland Cobourg Peninsula onto Greenhill Island, within Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in the NT.
Rabbit-rats are a rodent that have faced significant population declines in recent decades due to threats such as feral cats and intense fires and are listed as endangered in the NT. Mr Pickering’s work contributed to important efforts to support rabbit-rats’ population growth and to preserve genetic diversity of the species.
His honours project, ‘Evaluating the short-term success of a translocation of Brush-tailed Rabbit-Rats at Cobourg Peninsula’, ran from early 2023 to early 2024 and was supervised by RIEL’s Prof Sam Banks and Prof Brett Murphy with Territory Natural Resources Management’s (TNRM) Dr Kelly Dixon.
The translocation itself was managed by TNRM, with the first translocation event taking place in August 2023. In total, 46 rabbit-rats were moved onto Greenhill Island, 29 of which were fitted with radio-transmitting collars and tracked over a 3-month period. The team was able to confirm that 18 of the collared animals survived beyond the 3-month tracking period, with ongoing monitoring also indicating several breeding events on Greenhill Island.
Using the survivorship results from radio-tracking and demographic parameters from previous studies on the species, Mr Pickering simulated the population trajectory and genetic drift in different scenarios in order to bolster genetic diversity. Whilst he found in most cases that population growth would be high, the best scenario for preserving genetic diversity was to perform supplementary translocations of 10 to 20 animals every 2 years.
“The opportunity to be involved in this project came about because alumni are so eager to collaborate and get new students involved, which I am very grateful for,” Mr Pickering said. “Studying at RIEL provided an excellent opportunity for personal growth and development.”
Following his honours year, Mr Pickering began working as an ecologist for TNRM projects on the Cobourg Peninsula and more broadly in western Arnhem Land. In 2024, he was involved in a supplementary translocation in which a further 20 rabbit-rats were moved to Greenhill Island, indicating that translocation efforts have been effective so far.
This story was originally published in the RIEL Annual Report 2024
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