Seasonal movements of grey-headed flying-foxes, Pteropus poliocephalus (Chiroptera : Pteropodidae), from two maternity camps in northern New South Wales

Abstract

Seasonal movements of 22 Pteropus poliocephalus, from two maternity camps in north-eastern New South Wales, were monitored from January to June 1989 using radiotelemetry. The animals moved independently in time and space among various communal roosts located 8-610 km from the maternity camp sites. Generally, P. poliocephalus from a camp near rainforest (Currie Park, Lismore) remained within 50 km of the maternity site. These localised movements were attributed to the continued availability of fruits in the rainforest throughout the study. Animals from a maternity camp surrounded by sclerophyll forest (Susan I., Grafton) undertook long migrations south (median distance 342.5 km, n = 11) to camps containing up to 200 000 P. poliocephalus of both sexes. These large aggregations formed during the mating season and comprised individuals drawn from various previous sites. Thus, P. poliocephalus in northern and central N.S.W. appear to function as a single breeding population and should be managed as such. After mid-May, animals from Susan I. returned to north-eastern N.S.W. There was high correlation between movements of P. poliocephalus from the camp at Susan I. and the flowering patterns of certain species of Myrtaceae and Proteaceae. It is hypothesised that flowering attractive to apiarists is also attractive to P. poliocephalus and that information from apiarists could be used by wildlife managers to predict large aggregations of the animals.

Urban habituation, ecological connectivity and epidemic dampening: the emergence of Hendra virus from flying foxes (Pteropusspp.)

“…Host aggregation during reproduction [23,30,48,49] or periods of resource concentration [15,22] are other potential drivers of transmission that need further investigation. Finally, environmental stress could drive geographical 'stress synchrony'.…”

“…Qualitative assessments of long-term changes to flying fox populations were obtained by comparing historic literature [48][49][50] to current assessments [26][27][28][29]31] and expert opinion. Connectivity estimates from radio and satellite telemetry studies of P. poliocephalus [15,36] and radio telemetry studies of P. alecto [51,52] differed substantially, hence, we explored HeV dynamics over the entire range of the connectivity parameter, c, for which simulations persisted (see the electronic supplementary material, methods).…”

“…Our study used data and modelling approaches to evaluate a set of probable contributory mechanisms underlying HeV emergence in urban and peri-urban locations in eastern Australia. Likely mechanisms consistent with the data that include: (i) An increase in urban flying fox populations allows for increased contact with humans and horses; (ii) a decrease in migratory behaviour of urban flying foxes reduces viral transmission, leading to a decline in herd immunity, and a consequent increase in the intensity of HeV outbreaks when infection is reintroduced; and (iii) synchrony of stressors on individual bats and some demographic factors, including seasonal The approximate peak timing of life-history events for P. alecto and P. poliocephalus in South Queensland [15][16][17][18] is indicated at the top of the plot.…”

Regional genetic differentiation in the spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus Gould)

“…We report here on present-day regional-scale genetic structure in the spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus), generally assumed to be a rainforest specialist, and on the insights modern-day processes may provide for understanding responses of an extremely mobile animal to Pleistocene habitat contraction and fragmentation. All flying foxes are potentially extremely mobile and some species make seasonal migrations across hundreds of kilometres, following cycles of fruiting and flowering of favoured food trees (Eby 1991;Tidemann and Nelson 2004). Species such as the little red flying fox (Pteropus scapulatus) and grey-headed flying fox (P. poliocephalus) traverse many hundreds of kilometres in the course of a year and are apparently panmictic (Sinclair et al 1996;Tidemann 1996: Luly et al 2010).…”

Investigating risks to Australia of emergent henipaviruses

“…Surveillance for NiV in pre-border regions close to Australia has been limited to date, so the prevalence in these regions is unknown. However, flying-foxes can fly considerable distances (Eby, 1991;Vardon et al, 2001;Tidemann and Nelson, 2004), such as between peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra and between Papua New Guinea and Queensland (Breed et al 2010). There also appears to be a reasonable level of connectivity between bats in preborder regions since genetic studies of Pteropus vampyrus have shown high levels of gene flow between populations in Indonesia, Malaysia and East Timor .…”