Abstract
The fossil record provides important information about changes in species diversity, distribution, habitat and abundance through time. As we understand more about these changes, it becomes possible to envisage a wider range of options for translocations in a world where sustainability of habitats is under increasing threat. The Critically Endangered alpine/subalpine mountain pygmy-possum, Burramys parvus (Marsupialia, Burramyidae), is threatened by global heating. Using conventional strategies, there would be no viable pathway for stopping this iconic marsupial from becoming extinct. The fossil record, however, has inspired an innovative strategy for saving this species. This lineage has been represented over 25 Myr by a series of species always inhabiting lowland, wet forest palaeocommunities. These fossil deposits have been found in what is now the Tirari Desert, South Australia (24 Ma), savannah woodlands of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland (approx. 24–15 Ma) and savannah grasslands of Hamilton, Victoria (approx. 4 Ma). This palaeoecological record has led to the proposal overviewed here to construct a lowland breeding facility with the goal of monitoring the outcome of introducing this possum back into the pre-Quaternary core habitat for the lineage. If this project succeeds, similar approaches could be considered for other climate-change-threatened Australian species such as the southern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne corroboree) and the western swamp tortoise (Pseudemydura umbrina).This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?’
Highlights
The nineteenth-century poet Robert Browning declared ‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ He clearly valued envisioning ideas beyond those within easy reach
Because no other small mammal, let alone any other possum, in Australia’s modern forests has remotely similar dental specializations, we suggest that if MPPs were to be introduced into lowland wet forest environments, there is little or no likelihood that they would compete with other mammals in those habitats
Among continents, Australia has suffered the greatest loss of endemic mammal species with 29 endemic mammals having gone extinct and at least as many more struggling to survive [76] since European colonization in 1788
Summary
The nineteenth-century poet Robert Browning declared ‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ He clearly valued envisioning ideas beyond those within easy reach. Some of today’s threatened species, like the takahē, are restricted to relatively small, high altitude refuges near the edge of their originally wider range Other examples of this kind include the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and the eastern black-crested gibbon (Nomascus nasutus). Because there are no higher areas to which it can retreat nor suitable corridors to disperse further south as the climate warms, it appears that under projected climate change scenarios [31] extinction of this high-elevation specialist species in the wild is inevitable This is why the IUCN has classified this species as Critically Endangered despite the estimated population size exceeding 2000 individuals [27]. The plan does, acknowledge the importance of ongoing investigations, viz this project, into whether MPPs could persist outside the alpine zone
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