Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/19599
Title: Could Direct Killing by Larger Dingoes Have Caused the Extinction of the Thylacine from Mainland Australia?
Contributor(s): Letnic, Mike (author); Fillios, Melanie  (author)orcid ; Crowther, Mathew S (author)
Publication Date: 2012
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034877Open Access Link
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/19599
Abstract: Invasive predators can impose strong selection pressure on species that evolved in their absence and drive species to extinction. Interactions between coexisting predators may be particularly strong, as larger predators frequently kill smaller predators and suppress their abundances. Until 3500 years ago the marsupial thylacine was Australia's largest predator. It became extinct from the mainland soon after the arrival of a morphologically convergent placental predator, the dingo, but persisted in the absence of dingoes on the island of Tasmania until the 20th century. As Tasmanian thylacines were larger than dingoes, it has been argued that dingoes were unlikely to have caused the extinction of mainland thylacines because larger predators are rarely killed by smaller predators. By comparing Holocene specimens from the same regions of mainland Australia, we show that dingoes were similarly sized to male thylacines but considerably larger than female thylacines. Female thylacines would have been vulnerable to killing by dingoes. Such killing could have depressed the reproductive output of thylacine populations. Our results support the hypothesis that direct killing by larger dingoes drove thylacines to extinction on mainland Australia. However, attributing the extinction of the thylacine to just one cause is problematic because the arrival of dingoes coincided with another the potential extinction driver, the intensification of the human economy.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Grant Details: ARC/DP0985375
Source of Publication: PLoS One, 7(5), p. 1-5
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Place of Publication: United States of America
ISSN: 1932-6203
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 060809 Vertebrate Biology
210101 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Archaeology
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 310914 Vertebrate biology
450101 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology
430103 Archaeology of Australia (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander)
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 960805 Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity at Regional or Larger Scales
950503 Understanding Australia's Past
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 130703 Understanding Australia’s past
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

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