This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A study examining how feral water buffalo interact with landscapes has uncovered the pest's disastrous impacts on northern long-necked turtles in the Top End's tropical wetlands. The Charles Darwin University (CDU) study examined buffalo in the Arafura Swamp Indigenous Protected Area in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, and modeled the pest's impacts on habitats used by turtles across their life stages and during the area's flooded and dry phases.
The work is published in the journal Ecological Management & Restoration. Feral water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) are a major invasive pest in the Northern Territory and are considered "ecosystem engineers," a term for species that create, significantly modify, maintain or destroy habitat. Northern long-necked turtles (Chelodina rugosa) are found across northern Australia and hold both nutritional and cultural significance to First Nations peoples in the habitat areas.
The modeling found that, during the flooded phase, changes to the habitat caused by buffalo would reduce food availability and decrease turtle reproductive success. This would prevent turtles from accumulating the necessary nutrients to survive estivation (summer hibernation). During the dry phase, the modeling predicts buffalo modification of the soil would further affect estivation and developing embryos in buried nests.
It also shows that turtles and their eggs are at risk of being crushed by buffalo wallows and pugging. Lead author Helen Truscott is a CDU Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods doctoral candidate and the chief executive of the Arafura Swamp Rangers Aboriginal Corporation. She said that, given the persistence and abundance of feral buffalo across a region as remote and immense as Arnhem Land, reducing the immediate impacts while longer-term removal plans are in progress would require a nuanced approach.
This modeling is a crucial step forward. "For example, to address reduced embryo survival, increasing woody debris at sites may reduce the impact of direct crushing and raised soil temperatures," Truscott said. "This strategy would be most useful in select areas of the coastal habitat where there is currently no woody cover, and while we work on long-term buffalo reduction programs.
"Fencing, while found to be useful in other locations on smaller scales, likewise is not a feasible conservation action. The amount of fencing needed would be prohibitive for landscapes the scale of the Arafura Swamp. "This modeling approach is valuable in clarifying pathways leading to detrimental effects and revealing likely points of mitigation." Truscott said further research into the impacts on northern long-necked turtles was needed to develop long-term, large-scale conservation measures.
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