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**TughEmotteTug** · 04-30-2012, 09:10 PM

What is the importance of Koalas in the ecosystem??

Maybe they are a species that has come to the end of it's time, once an animal has come to the end of it's purpose in the ecosystem do they just naturally decline???

No.. wait.. what? The obvious ecological significance of keystone species is one thing, but to reduce the role of other species whose function may not be so obvious as 'having no purpose' is something else. Koalas are a diprotodontid relic from a past age of greater mammalian diversity. They are reliant on sizeable tracts of intact eucalypt forest and their current decline is a consequence of extreme over-hunting for the 20thC fur trade, forest degradation, fragmentation, roads, urbanisation and dogs. Similar threatening processes are taking out cassowaries - but we can appreciate their role as dispersers of large seeds. So - why pick on koalas?

Koalas are arboreal herbiviores - they've found themselves on a rather restricted and extreme diet but none the less - that's were they are and they have survived when other diprotodontids went extinct. They were doing fine until the hunting and clearing / logging - and have been shown to still do fine when put on predator free islands like Kangaroo Island (where they become overabundant ferals). They can even overbrowse patches of their native forest under some conditions. It would be interesting to know how their browsing affects tree productivity (foliage output), leaf quality and how they have shaped the evolution of eucalypt leaf chemistry.

Their roles can include - repositories for internal parasites and as an arboreal herbivores and a selective agent on eucalypt leaf metabolite evolution. How they detoxify terpenoids is an area of interest in toxicology. A good population of koalas in their native forest is used as a good indicator of overall forest health, biodiversity, forest intactness, their recovery from hunting, low koala disease levels and low levels of other threatening processes.

04-30-2012, 09:10 PM	#5
TughEmotteTug Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 503 Senior Member	What is the importance of Koalas in the ecosystem?? Maybe they are a species that has come to the end of it's time, once an animal has come to the end of it's purpose in the ecosystem do they just naturally decline??? No.. wait.. what? The obvious ecological significance of keystone species is one thing, but to reduce the role of other species whose function may not be so obvious as 'having no purpose' is something else. Koalas are a diprotodontid relic from a past age of greater mammalian diversity. They are reliant on sizeable tracts of intact eucalypt forest and their current decline is a consequence of extreme over-hunting for the 20thC fur trade, forest degradation, fragmentation, roads, urbanisation and dogs. Similar threatening processes are taking out cassowaries - but we can appreciate their role as dispersers of large seeds. So - why pick on koalas? Koalas are arboreal herbiviores - they've found themselves on a rather restricted and extreme diet but none the less - that's were they are and they have survived when other diprotodontids went extinct. They were doing fine until the hunting and clearing / logging - and have been shown to still do fine when put on predator free islands like Kangaroo Island (where they become overabundant ferals). They can even overbrowse patches of their native forest under some conditions. It would be interesting to know how their browsing affects tree productivity (foliage output), leaf quality and how they have shaped the evolution of eucalypt leaf chemistry. Their roles can include - repositories for internal parasites and as an arboreal herbivores and a selective agent on eucalypt leaf metabolite evolution. How they detoxify terpenoids is an area of interest in toxicology. A good population of koalas in their native forest is used as a good indicator of overall forest health, biodiversity, forest intactness, their recovery from hunting, low koala disease levels and low levels of other threatening processes.
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