Laying low: Rugged lowland rainforest preferred by feral cats in the Australian Wet Tropics.

ABSTRACT: Invasive mesopredators are responsible for the decline of many species of native mammals worldwide. Feral cats have been causally linked to multiple extinctions of Australian mammals since European colonization. While feral cats are found throughout Australia, most research has been undertaken in arid habitats, thus there is a limited understanding of feral cat distribution, abundance, and ecology in Australian tropical rainforests. We carried out camera-trapping surveys at 108 locations across seven study sites, spanning 200 km in the Australian Wet Tropics. Single-species occupancy analysis was implemented to investigate how environmental factors influence feral cat distribution. Feral cats were detected at a rate of 5.09 photographs/100 days, 11 times higher than previously recorded in

SUBMITTER: Bruce T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9277418 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature