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Detecting the impact of invasive species on native fauna: Cane toads (Bufo marinus), frillneck lizards (Chlamydosaurus kingii) and the importance of spatial replication

journal contribution
posted on 2010-01-01, 00:00 authored by Beata UjvariBeata Ujvari, R Shine, Thomas MadsenThomas Madsen
An understanding of which native species are severely impacted by an anthropogenic change (such as the arrival of an invasive species) and which are not is critical to prioritizing conservation efforts. However, it is difficult to detect such impacts if the native taxa exhibit strong stochastic variations in abundance; a ‘natural’ population decline might be wrongly interpreted as an impact of the invader. Frillneck lizards (Chlamydosaurus kingii) are large iconic Australian agamids, and have been reported to decline following the invasion of toxic cane toads. We monitored three populations of the species in the savanna woodland of tropical Australia over a 7-year period bracketing toad arrival. One population crashed, one remained stable and one increased. Hence, studies on any single population might have inferred that cane toads have negative, negligible or positive effects on frillneck lizards. With the benefit of spatial replication, and in combination with observations of prey choice by captive lizards, our data suggest that invasive cane toads have had little or no effect on frillneck abundance.

History

Journal

Australian ecology

Volume

36

Issue

2

Pagination

126 - 130

Publisher

Wiley

Location

Melbourne, Vic.

ISSN

1442-9993

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2010, Wiley