776 M. J. Hodgson et al.
range of D. rhodogaster was burnt in the Black Summer bushfires, the species persists in areas affected by fires. Like many other species, D. rhodogaster was of low con- servation concern prior to the fires, and little was known about its ecology or population status. Although our research provides some insight into the occurrence of D. rhodogaster after an extensive bushfire, the strength of our conclusions is limited by the absence of pre-fire information for this cryptic species. Moving forward, there is a need for a concerted effort to build baseline data on cryptic species categorized as Least Concern, so that more comprehensive comparisons can be made in the wake of future catastrophic events.
Author contributions Study conception: ML, with contributions from MJH; data collection: MJH, AKR, YL, SC, BR, OP, JW, NS, JL, SWL, ML; data analysis: MJH, SWL, HMB, FM, ML; writing: MJH, with contributions from HMB; revision: all authors; funding acquisi- tion: JW, ML.
Acknowledgements We thank the many volunteers who assisted with the fieldwork; Tony Thorne for donating the roof tiles used in the field surveys; Marc Mazerolle for providing statistical advice; and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. This projectwas funded by the Bushfire Recovery Fund (BWHR-T2_GA-2000634). The University of Sydney has a publishing agreement with Cambridge University Press that facilitated the open access publication of this article.
Ethical standards This research abided by the Oryx guidelines on ethical standards. All fieldwork methods and animal handling were approved by the University of New South Wales Animal Ethics Committee (20/160B) and the University of Wollongong Animal Ethics Committee (AE1912). The field research was conducted with approval from New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (SL102394).
Conflicts of interest None.
Data availability Occupancy data are available at
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Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 769–778 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000048
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