Snakes and skinks alive — but for how long?
An endangered skink and snake have been discovered in a major survey of reptiles by a La Trobe University PhD student in the Mallee. Lisa Spence-Bailey’s work is part of a study of the effect of fire regimes on fauna in an area straddling Victoria, NSW and South Australia.
The Mallee Fire and Biodiversity Project is the largest study of the impact of natural and man-made fires on landscapes ever conducted in Australia. It follows many years of research in the Mallee by La Trobe zoologist, Dr Michael Clarke, see page 8.
The Millewa skink discovery was hailed by Parks Victoria which will use results from the survey for habitat management in the Murray-Sunset National Park.
Ms Spence-Bailey says she was studying how reptiles in the Mallee responded to fire regimes. ‘Catching this species of skink was a wonderful by-product of the fieldwork.’ Her discovery expands the known distribution of the species. Prior to this, it was only thought to exist in small populations about 100 kilometres to the west.
She says its restricted distribution in Victoria and reliance upon mallee vegetation makes the species potentially vulnerable to severe wildfires.
‘Fire management in the Mallee and other ecosystems aims to create a mosaic of different fire-age patches,’ she explains. However, little is known about which characteristics of such mosaics – patch size, connectivity, configuration of patches – are important to flora and fauna.
‘To date management has been primarily based on meeting the needs of plants, the assumption being that the needs of animals will also be met. But we know very little about the responses of animals to fire. Our suspicion is that the plants are a lot more tolerant of fire than animals. So what may be ok for plants may prove inadequate to sustain some animals.’
The endangered snake, the Bardick, was captured at Petro Station, in south-western New South Wales, only the third recorded find in the State. A difficult snake to catch, it occurs in mallee habitats associated with spinifex. It is thought to be predominately nocturnal, preying on small vertebrates including lizards, frogs and mammals.
There are more than forty species of reptile in the study area, from seven different families – dragons, geckos, skinks, legless lizards, snakes, goannas and blind snakes. The researchers are looking at how their distribution and abundance varies according to habitat and fire history.
So far, Ms Spence-Bailey says, 10,000 animals have been captured on 280 sites representing twenty-eight fire mosaics. The reptiles are identified, marked and then released near the point of capture. ‘They have opened my eyes to the value of the Mallee and the complexity of the challenge to conserve both flora and fauna.’