An exploratory analysis of landscape-level effects on wild dog home ranges and core areas : a case study at Kosciuszko National Park, and Bago and Maragle State Forest
Creators: name: McBride, Gemma
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2007
Subjects: subject: QL795.D5M35 2007
subject: Dingo Ecology Australia Kosciuszko National Park (N.S.W.)
subject: Wild Dogs Ecology Australia Kosciuszko National Park (N.S.W.)
subject: Dingo Ecology Australia Bago State Forest (N.S.W.)
subject: Wild dogs Ecology Australia Bago State Forest (N.S.W.)
subject: Dingo Ecology Australia Maragle State Forest (N.S.W.)
subject: Wild dogs Ecology Australia Maragle State Forest (N.S.W.)

description: Wild dogs in Australia comprise both purebred dingoes and dingo/domestic dog hybrids. Wil d dogs are widespread across mainland Australia including the south eastern region and still maintain the role of top order predator and trophic regulator. Although they are protected in many National Parks as native species and important ecosystem regulators they are also considered to be pests in rural areas where they spread di sease and prey on small cattle and sheep. This dichotomy of perspectives can make management of the species difficult, however, with more knowledge of the behaviour and habitat requirements of the dingo perhaps more effective management strategies can be developed. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the hypothesis that selected landscapelevel variables play a significant role in determining the core and home ranges of wild dogs. The steps in researching this hypothesis are two-fold, (1) to estimate the home ranges and core areas of the wild dogs in the case s tudy, and (2) examine the l andscape features of the home ranges and core areas of movement to determine whether or not certain features in the landscape may effect or shape home ranges. The wild dog data were drawn from three previous studies to give a total of eighteen wild dogs. All of these wild dogs were located in either the Bago or Maragle State Forests near Tumbarumba, NSW or in the adjoining northwest comer of Kosciuszko National Park. The study found the wild dogs ' home ranges, usmg 100 % minimum convex polygons, to be significantly larger than expected compared with the findings of a number of previous studies of wild dog home ranges in a variety of locations around Australia. Kernel estimators, which were used to calculate the core movement areas were found to produce better estimates than minimum convex polygo ns, but were sensitive to small clusters of data points that could heavily influence both the size and location of core areas. This was highli ghted by th e compariso n between two data sets (AR 181 and DJ 220) of the one wild dog that produced very different results for what appeared to be essentially the same home range and core areas. The landscape features of vegetation, topography and water surfaces were also studied within the home ranges and core areas of each of the wild dogs and it was found that they tended to be in areas made up predominantly of Montane Tableland Forests and although, in general, terrain tended to be rugged with large relief, territory within the core areas were mainly flat or undulating plateaus. No s imple linear correlation was found between wild dog sites and Gross Primary Productivity. Similarly, no link was found with water surfaces and home and core ranges.