Studies on the arboreal marsupial fauna of eucalypt forests being harvested for woodpulp at Eden, N.S.W. II. Relationship between the fauna density, richness and diversity, and measured variables of the habitat

L. W. Braithwaite, M. L. Dudzinski and J. Turner

Abstract

The relationships were examined between measurements of forest habitat (10 explanatory variables: X) and densities of three species of arboreal marsupials (greater glider, feathertail glider and sugar glider); the sum of these three and an additional five species that occurred; species richness and diversity of all eight species present in the area (six response variables: Y). The habitat variables were: landform profile; elapsed time since a severe fire; degree of forest maturity (total basal area of wood); an index of den tree density; ratio of number of regeneration size trees to den trees; floristic diversity; basal area of peppermints; basal area of gums; basal area of eucalypts with a low level of nutrients in their foliage; and an index of potassium concentration in the foliage.

The principal component transformation of the X set of variables (PCA) was used as an aid to interpret the individual response of Y to joint intercorrelated explanatory variables X. The regressions of Y on PCA-transformed X explained 76.2% of variation in density for the greater glider, 50.4% for the feathertail glider, 21.1% for the sugar glider, 68.3% for all arboreal marsupials, 49.7% for species richness and 30.1% for species diversity. The weak regressions obtained for densities for the sugar glider were attributed to probable non-measurement of important understorey habitat variables for this species, and those for species richness and diversity, to the presence of a curvilinear rather than linear relationship to foliage nutrients.

The gradient in foliage nutrient concentration appears to be the major determinant of the density and species richness and diversity of arboreal marsupials in the Eden forests. Exceptions to the trend seem to occur where the forests include certain xeromorphic eucalypt species that are high in foliage nutrients yet poor in fauna, and, for the feathertail and sugar glider, in those sections of the Eden forests exhibiting fire successional stages and that are usually composed of eucalypts with low nutrient levels in their foliage.

Australian Wildlife Research 10(2) 231 - 247 (1983) doi:10.1071/WR9830231