Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555:body:0:p73
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 228235–231151

from fire and timber harvesting (Kavanagh et al. 2007; Lunney et al. 2007; Matthews et al. 2016); and landforms of the natural and built environment (Barth et al. 2019; McAlpine et al. 2006a; Rus et al. 2021; Santika et al. 2014; Sullivan et al. 2003; Wu et al. 2019).
At the landscape scale, the total amount of available habitat and habitat quality are the primary environmental factors that influence Koala presence (Barth et al. 2019; Dargan et al. 2019; Januchowski et al. 2008; McAlpine et al. 2006a and b). Also important to Koalas is the relative importance of landscape patch size, form and spatial configuration within context of the wider landscape, which can vary among landscapes and varies regionally. For example, riparian habitats and surface water bodies are essential for the survival of Koalas at the western margins of Koala distribution (Wu 2018), but persistence in these areas is supported by the presence of intact non-riparian habitat (Smith et al. 2013). The use of isolated trees (large trees also used by stock) within grazing paddocks is commonly recorded (Dargan et al. 2019; White 1999). In agricultural and fragmented landscapes of south-east Queensland scattered paddock trees have been found, along with roadside vegetation, to be disproportionately important to the local Koala population (Barth et al. 2019). Furthermore, riparian vegetation facilitates local movement (Davies et al. 2013) and is important in long-distance dispersal (McAlpine et al. 2006a and b; Norman et al. 2019) (section 27.3).
Over long timescales, and under climate change, habitat areas that provide refuge, or safe havens, during droughts are particularly important in sustaining Koala populations (Adams-Hosking et al. 2011b, Lunney et al. 2017). In drier parts of their range, habitat areas with perennial water and geological features that provide cooler microclimates may support the highest densities of Koalas and provide refuge for Koalas during times of heat and water stress (Lunney et al. 2017; Seabrook et al. 2011; Sullivan et al. 2004). Intact habitat outside watercourses but with higher quality food trees may also support refugial populations, albeit at lower densities (Davies et al. 2013; Ellis et al. 2010a; Smith et al. 2013).
As described above, Koalas need access to different types of habitat attributes at multiple spatial and temporal scales (Dargan et al. 2019). What constitutes Koala habitat is the result of interactions between an individual animal's behaviour, which can be understood from studies of Koala's behavioural ecology, biology and movement patterns (Part VI), and the requirement and selection of environmental resources of the particular landscape in which individual Koalas, and the populations they belong to, live (functional ecology). These in turn are influenced by processes at other scales (e.g. fire, hydrology, vegetation clearance and climate change).