Poisoning of dingoes - wild dogs - has a deleterious effect on small native mammals such as marsupial mice, bandicoots and native rodents, according to a new paper which found that loss of dingoes after baiting is associated with greater activity by foxes, which prey on small marsupials and native rodents.

As well, the number of kangaroos and wallabies increases when dingoes, the top predators in the Australian bush, disappear. Grazing by these herbivores reduces the density of the vegetation in which the small ground-dwelling mammals live.

"Dingoes should not be poisoned if we want to halt the loss of mammal biodiversity in Australia. We need to develop strategies to maintain the balance of nature by keeping dingoes in the bush, while minimizing their impacts on livestock," says senior author Dr, Mike Letnic of
University of New South Wales.

The researchers surveyed seven pairs of forested sites within conservation reserves managed by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Baiting of dingoes with 1080 poison had been carried out at one location in each pair, but not the other. Apart from the resulting difference in the number of dingoes present, the pairs of locations had similar eucalypt coverage, geology and landforms, and were less than 50 kilometres apart.

"This provided an extraordinary natural experiment to compare the impact of the loss of dingoes on a forested ecosystem," says Dr Letnic, an ARC Future Fellow in the Centre for Ecosystem Science in the UNSW School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.

It is the first study to show how removing large carnivores can result in simultaneous population outbreaks of herbivores and smaller predators. And that these population outbreaks, in turn, can have deleterious effects on smaller mammals.

The activity of dingoes, foxes, feral cats and bandicoots was assessed from their tracks. Kangaroos and wallabies and possums were counted from the back of a four wheel drive. Traps were used to catch marsupials and native rodents, and surveys of vegetation were carried out.

"We found foxes and large herbivores benefit from dingo control, while small-bodied terrestrial mammal species decline in abundance," says Letnic. "Predation by foxes is one of the most important threats to small native mammals, and grazing by herbivores can reduce their preferred habitats for shelter, leaving them exposed to predators."

This is a dingo in the Australian bush. A new study shows the poisoning of dingoes has a deleterious effect on small native mammals such as marsupial mice, bandicoots and native rodents. Credit: Charlotte Mills