Understanding the ecological roles of apex predators remains an important field of study. The influence of apex predators on ecosystems can be either profound or negligible in different situations, and uncertainty still exists about the ecological roles of most top-predators, including Australian dingoes. This uncertainly is maintained by a dearth of experimental evidence investigating their roles. Such evidence is indispensable if dingo management is to be evidence-based. In this report, we discuss a recent experiment where dingoes were released on to an island as vertebrate biocontrol tools intended to eradicate feral goats and restore native vegetation being threatened by the goats. The experiment was successful, and the dingoes reduced the goat population to one or perhaps two male goats within ~2 years. This predator introduction experiment elucidated dingo’s effects on small livestock, their per capita predation rates, and their invasiveness or their ability to adapt and change their environment. The experiment confirmed that dingoes have the capacity to decimate populations of small livestock species and trigger a trophic cascade by reducing herbivory on vegetation. We encourage further manipulative experiments to explore the ubiquity of these results in different contexts.
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Research Article|
September 14 2020
Elucidating dingo’s ecological roles: contributions from the Pelorus Island feral goat biocontrol project
Benjamin L. Allen;
Benjamin L. Allen
*
1 University of Southern Queensland, Institute for Life Sciences and the Environment, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia.
2 Centre for African Conservation Ecology, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth 6034, South Africa.
*Corresponding author. Email: benjamin.allen@usq.edu.au
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Lee R. Allen;
Lee R. Allen
3 Biosecurity Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia.
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Michael Graham;
Michael Graham
4 Biosecurity Queensland, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia.
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Matt Buckman
Matt Buckman
5 Hinchinbrook Shire Council, Ingham, Queensland 4850, Australia.
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Australian Zoologist (2021) 41 (3): 374–387.
Citation
Benjamin L. Allen, Lee R. Allen, Michael Graham, Matt Buckman; Elucidating dingo’s ecological roles: contributions from the Pelorus Island feral goat biocontrol project. Australian Zoologist 28 October 2021; 41 (3): 374–387. doi: https://doi.org/10.7882/AZ.2020.018
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