Mammal populations In exotic pine plantations and indigenous eucalypt forests in Gippsland, Victoria

Summary

A comparative study of mammalian populations in plantations of Pinus radiatu of different ages, and in adjacent native eucalypt forests, was carried out in Gippsland, Victoria. Species richness was lower and the proportion of introduced species was higher in plantations, particularly in the younger stands where no over-storey vegetation existed. Certain small ground-dwelling species were favoured at different plantation ages, depending on their food and refuge requirements. Larger ground-dwelling herbivores and carnivores were common in pine plantations, although feeding areas for herbivorous species in middle-aged plantations with a closed canopy were restricted to compartment edges and tracks. Most arboreal herbivores, insectivores, nectivores and tree-hollow users were uncommon in plantations, and in such areas were restricted to retained native forest: their long-term survival in pine plantations is open to question. Some arboreal species with relatively broad food and refuge requirements were able to exist within older plantation compartments which supported some understorey shrub vegetation.

In pine plantations, mammalian species richness was greatest near edges adjacent to native forest, and where remnants of native forest and a mosaic of pine stands of various ages existed (i.e. a “plantation complex”). Windrows in first-rotation plantations may be important refuge habitats for some of the smaller native mammals, for such species were absent from young second-rotation plantations which lacked windrows.