126 J. L. Silcock et al.
TABLE 1 Locations and dates of surveys in three time periods for the yellow-footed rock-wallaby Petrogale xanthopus celeris in central- western Queensland, Australia (Fig. 1), ordered by total number of sites, with number of sites in each location and period (and in paren- theses the number of sites at which the subspecies was located). Only sites that were . 1.5 km apart and those originally surveyed in the 1970s–1980s (Gordon et al., 1978, 1993) that we could relocate accurately are included. Clusters of sites outside the known range of the subspecies and with only absences recorded were not assigned localities and are not shown (but are in Fig. 1).
Location
Yanyang, Macedon & Northern Grey ranges
Gowan Range, including Ambathala Range
Between Thomson & Barcoo rivers
Cheviot Range Central Grey Range
Wallaroo/Edinburgh ranges Warrego/Enniskillen ranges McGregor Range Total
Centroid coordinates
Number of sites 1973–1987 (present)
25.099°S, 144.292°E 15 (14) 25.074°S, 145.066°E 21(20) 24.725°S, 143.491°E 15 (9) 25.448°S, 143.645°E 6 (6)
26.155°S, 143.827°E 1 (0) 25.302°S, 145.337°E 6 (1) 24.943°S, 145.726°E 4 (1) 26.479°S, 142.762°E 0 (0)
68 (51)
square metre; linear extent of rock-wallaby dung occurrence (i.e. the distance over which we observed dung on a walking transect along or through the typically linear landscape fea- tures being surveyed, measured by taking a GPS fix at the start and end of dung occurrence); and presence and abun- dance (based on number of individuals seen and abundance of dung) of other herbivores, specifically common wallar- oos, feral goats and European rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus. We ranked all of these as absent, uncommon (scattered dung and one or no animals seen) or common (dung abun- dant and/or .1 individual sighted). Rock-wallaby dung is clearly distinguishable from dung of other macropods in the study area by its cylindrical shape, tapering to a narrow end (Triggs, 2004). The data are presented in Supplementary Table 1.
Data analysis
We calculated habitat scores for each site by summing the number of physical features present out of five: cliffs or gor- ges, fissures/passages, rocky terraces, caves/overhangs and boulders (Lim & Giles, 1987). We derived a yellow-footed rock-wallaby abundance index after Gordon et al. (1993): ab- sent (no dung or individuals sighted); uncommon (maximum density of faecal pellets 1–5/m2 and one or no individuals sighted); common (maximum density of faecal pellets 6–20/m2 and/or 2–4 individuals sighted); or abundant (max- imumdensity of faecal pellets.20/m2 and/or$5 individuals sighted). Where we attempted to relocate a 1970s–1980s site but habitat characteristics were substantially different between years we assumed that the site had not been ac- curately relocated and it was excluded from the time series analysis.
Number of sites 2010–2015 (present)
38 (35) 22 (22) 15 (8)
17 (14) 6 (3) 9 (9) 7 (0) 2 (1)
116 (92)
Number of sites 2020–2023 (present)
20 (19) 21 (20) 9 (9) 6 (6)
10 (9) 8 (8) 4 (3) 3 (0)
81 (74)
Total sites (sites re-surveyed, surveyed $ 3 times)
43 (22, 8) 39 (17, 8) 23 (10, 6) 21 (7, 1)
14 (3, 0) 10 (9, 4) 7 (6, 2) 5 (0, 0)
162 (74, 29) We obtained mean annual rainfall for each site from
SILO, a modelled surface informed by a network of rainfall stations (Jeffrey et al., 2001). Rainfall varied considerably within and between survey periods. During the period of the original surveys (1973–1987) rainfall was above average through the 1970s, but most sites were visited during a dry period during 1983–1987. The first survey period of our study (2010–2015) had extremely high rainfall during September 2010–March 2011, with most sites visited during 2011–2012 having experienced their wettest summer in at least half a century. Most sites surveyed from 2013 onwards received below average rainfall in the 12 months prior to surveys. The second survey period reported here occurred in slightly below average (2020–2021) to well above aver- age (2022–2023) rainfall. We investigated water availability for each site visited
during the 2010–2023 surveys using the current Effective Distance to Water dataset (Healy et al., 2020). This dataset provides a modelled surface that weights distance to water by the permanence of that water source. We calculated the mean effective distance to water at multiple buffer distances around each site to investigate water availability in terms of both the site (100mradius around site) and regional (10 km radius around site) contexts. We calculated the maximum width of the range system within which each site occurred, in ArcGIS 10.0 (Esri, USA), using Regional Ecosystem map- ping (Queensland Herbarium, 2021). We assigned the status of the vegetation on the footslopes
and valleys within 1.5km(i.e. typical foraging distance; Sharp, 2009) of each site as cleared (.90%of originalwoody vege- tation cleared), partially cleared (10–90% of original woody vegetation cleared) or intact (,10%oforiginalwoody veg- etation cleared) through field notes supplemented by
Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 123–135 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000760
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