Background: Home range usage and size over time is primary information for setting appropriately sized management units for conservation of fauna. Movement behaviour studies have benefited from improved remote sensing technology and analysis techniques but usages for conservation of Australian fauna are few.
Objective: To contrast the size of home ranges of a mesocarnivore, a gregarious and omnivorous invasive animal, and a threatened herbivore to propose conservation and management unit areas.
Methods: Cumulative movement data were collected from GPS collars on dingoes and feral pigs in several east Australian bioregions, and for brush-tailed rock-wallabies in north east NSW. The GPS fix data were processed and analysed in an R-pipeline developed to semi-automate analysis of animal movement data, and different analyses were applied for the three types of home range usage they typically exhibit.
Results: As expected, dingoes had the largest home ranges, which varied with primary productivity and usage was heterogenous in each environment. Brush-tailed rock wallabies had small focal home ranges with circumference likely delimited by total predation pressure. Feral pigs had intermediate home ranges that included periods of intensive use of seasonal resource availability.
Conclusions: If conservation of dingoes or conservation of endangered fauna threatened by dingoes is the objective, then the area of the conservation site must be at least twice the dingo home range circumference for the ecosystem. Concentration on foci of damage by feral pigs rather than broader expected home range size of groups will result in ineffective conservation efforts. Likewise, targeting predator control at brush-tailed rock-wallaby refugia sites will likely be ineffectual because refugia are likely too small in relation to the home range size of the threatening predators. We discuss our thinking behind setting these areas as minimum management units in relation to conservation case studies.

Australian estuaries are biodiversity hotspots that deliver vital ecosystem services to society but are increasingly threatened by habitat loss, disturbance, and introduced predators. Coastal estuaries support around 50 shorebird species, many of which have experienced significant declines, highlighting the urgent need for evidence-based conservation. While high-tide roosting habitats are well characterised, knowledge gaps remain regarding shorebird spatial ecology at night and during low tides—periods that are critical for foraging but may also involve heightened vulnerability to predation. We deployed an array of eight motus automated telemetry stations in the Hunter Estuary, including a Ramsar-listed wetland of international significance to shorebird conservation, to quantify fine-scale habitat use of nano-tagged shorebirds across tidal and circadian cycles. This novel dataset reveals, for the first time, species-specific patterns of estuarine use at night and during low tide, providing new knowledge of habitat preferences and movement ecology. Moreover, the talk will illustrate how patterns of movement revealed by automated telemetry can be combined with other ecological data (eDNA, camera trapping, stable isotopes) to begin unravelling the drivers of shorebird movements (e.g., predation risk by invasive predators) and to determine whether some habitats not used by shorebirds contribute nevertheless to their conservation. Hence, the talk demonstrates how comprehensive estuary-level shorebird movement data revealed by a motus array can support evidence-based, land management decisions and adaptive management at the spatial scale where conservation action is typically implemented.

Freshwater turtle populations in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, are increasingly dominated by older adults, with juvenile turtles rarely observed. While nest predation rates are high, far less is known about survival rates in the critical period just after emergence from the nest. Vegetation loss across the Murray-Darling Basin may pose an additional threat to hatchlings, as aquatic plants likely provide them with food and essential refuge from predators. Here, we test whether hatchling Emydura macquarii actively select for aquatic vegetation, and how the available habitat influences their movement and short-term survival.

We radio-tracked 58 hatchling turtles across five wetlands of the Murray-Darling Basin during the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 summers. We tracked hatchlings daily for up to four weeks, or until predation or disappearance. We recorded habitat variables at their locations, along with a nearby random location. Hatchlings selected for aquatic vegetation at sites where it was sparse but not at sites where vegetation was abundant, likely reflecting among-site differences in preferred habitat availability. Short-term survival rates were extremely low, with predation being the probable primary cause. Daily distances travelled and the short-term survivorship of hatchlings did not differ between sites, regardless of vegetation abundance. Identifying the key drivers of low hatchling survival will inform management strategies aimed at restoring juvenile recruitment and ensure the recovery of freshwater turtle populations.

From Monarch butterflies to blue whales, animals of all sizes, life history strategies, and taxonomic groups take part in migrations. Unfortunately, the routes and resources critical for these migrations are under threat, and many populations are in decline. To effectively protect migratory species, it is crucial to understand how they connect geographic regions. While the amount of data describing migratory movements is growing exponentially, the knowledge generated by those studies remains buried in scientific literature. This bottleneck in the delivery of critical ecological knowledge is a conservation challenge, constraining area-based planning processes and environmental impact assessments. By synthesizing 1304 references to develop model migratory networks for 109 marine species containing over 1700 sites, the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean system (MiCO; mico.eco/system) demonstrates the minimum extent of global marine megafauna connectivity. Our analyses describe regional and global connectivity of a previously unfathomable scale, underscoring the importance of transboundary cooperation for migratory species conservation at scales larger than current regional structures afford. The freely available network models will enable policymakers to efficiently summarize how marine migrants connect their jurisdictions, and consideration of megavertebrate connectivity in the design and assessment of regional and global networks of marine protected areas.

Red kangaroos (Osphranter rufus) are a keystone species in Australia’s arid ecosystems, playing a critical role in shaping vegetation dynamics and trophic interactions. However, their population dynamics and movement have been significantly altered by the widespread availability of artificial water points, leading to ecological imbalances such as overgrazing. Additionally, agricultural fencing may disrupt natural movement pathways at finer spatial scales. Despite the ecological importance of red kangaroos, fine-scale data on their movement and behaviour, particularly in relation to landscape features and climatic stressors, remain limited.
This study addresses critical knowledge gaps in kangaroo movement ecology using GPS and accelerometer collars deployed across Bon Bon reserve, South Australia. To date, six GPS-only collars have been successfully deployed and are actively collecting data. Preliminary results indicate that collared individuals travel to artificial water points located off-reserve approximately once per week, suggesting regular cross-boundary movement and highlighting the influence of anthropogenic water provisioning on habitat use and movement decisions. In parallel, a behavioural classifier is being developed using accelerometer data from captive individuals at Cleland Wildlife Park. This classifier enables remote identification of key behaviours, providing a foundation for interpreting behavioural responses to environmental conditions in wild populations.
This presentation will share early insights from GPS tracking and behavioural classification, highlighting kangaroo’s spatial habitat use of arid landscapes and interact with artificial landscape features. These findings will contribute to evidence-based management, deepen our understanding of arid zone herbivore ecology and inform conservation strategies aimed at restoring more natural movement patterns.