Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555:body:0:p70
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555
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Character Range: 220269–223273

diversity, consistent with bottlenecks and founder events from translocations (Houlden et al. 1996; Johnson et al. 2018; Kjeldsen et al. 2019; Wedrowicz et al. 2018). South Gippsland may be an exception and is thought to be a remnant population (Wedrowicz et al. 2018). Analysis using whole genome data from this region and the more northern areas of Victoria will determine where the southern boundary of diversity delineates in Victoria.
As with many species that live across a large range, the Koala exhibits spatial structuring at multiple scales (Houlden et al. 1999; Johnson et al. 2018; Thompson 2006), with a large proportion of genetic variation among populations explained by geographic distance (Kjeldsen et al. 2019). At a continental scale, Neaves et al. (2016) found four shallowly divergent lineages within three geographic clusters corresponding to two known Pleistocene biogeographic barriers – the Brisbane River and Clarence River Valley, consistent with three linages described by Houlden et al. (1999). An additional barrier associated with the Hunter Valley has also been described (Johnson et al. 2018). Pleistocene barriers may have historically influenced mtDNA structure of the Koala, but evidence of contemporary gene flow indicates biogeographic features are no longer barriers to movement (Johnson et al. 2018; Neaves et al. 2016). An understanding of functional gene diversity is required to understand the long-term adaptive implications of this spatial structure differences.
At finer scales, populations show significant levels of neutral genetic differentiation attributed to contemporary habitat fragmentation (Lee et al. 2010b; Thompson 2006) or relative isolation such as those of islands (Lee et al. 2010a; Wedrowicz et al. 2018) and the Sydney Basin (Kjeldsen et al. 2019).

23. Valued populations
No population is more important than another – for a threatened species, all populations are of value in contributing to the total population size and recovery. Some populations are also valued for social, cultural or economic reasons, while some have functionally important roles for recovery.
Koalas are valued by the community with efforts made to care for displaced Koalas. Image: © Karen Ford.
Spatially defining a biological population is challenging where data are deficient, boundaries are fuzzy, and can be influenced by the scale considered (regional versus local, temporal) and landscape context. There also are many reasons a population may be considered important (see below).
Populations of the Koala are valued for cultural, social, and economic reasons (section 1) as well as for the species' conservation.
1) For the listed Koala conservation, among other reasons, it will be imperative to maintain populations:
       a) that have the potential to act as source populations to adjacent areas of suitable, or potentially suitable, habitat
       b) that exist in areas of climatically suitable refugia during periods of environmental stress including