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Coast kangaroos seek ‘perfect match’
Sending dominant male and female kangaroos on “blind dates” to other populations across the Sunshine Coast may help increase genetic diversity among the marsupials.
Preliminary research by a University of the Sunshine Coast science student has suggested that some resident kangaroo populations are a hop, skip and a jump away from isolation and inbreeding.
It’s believed to be the first Australian study of the faecal microsatellite DNA of kangaroos, which is a type of DNA used in forensic science.
USC Honours student Amberlee Marker found what appeared to be a five-fold decrease in genetic diversity among the Eastern Greys on the Sippy Downs campus.
“If further research shows this is also happening in neighbouring populations, I recommend moving some of the dominant kangaroos of both genders between groups for breeding,” Ms Marker said.
“They need to be ‘dating’ outside their family group to be sustainable long-term. However the side effects, such as social acceptance of the new animal, are unknown.
“Another option is to create more wildlife corridors to encourage natural migration but this would be costly, difficult to implement and time-consuming.”
The 19-year-old USC student, who attended St John’s College at Nambour, said she was not surprised by the results of her research, which compared the DNA of local roos with previous studies and wild populations in Brisbane and Charleville.
“Urban development is expanding so fast into wildlife habitats on the Coast,” she said.
“I was surprised, though, by our success in using new technology to extract DNA from their droppings. We checked its accuracy against DNA from tissue samples from a kangaroo carcass from Forest Glen.”
Ms Marker said the method was non-invasive for the animal, saved time and money and involved simple collection and storage.
“Further studies should be undertaken on larger samples of Eastern Greys on the Coast to determine genetic variations,” she said.
Her research was supervised by USC’s Dr Scott Burnett and Associate Professor Wayne Knibb. It was supported by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s Campus Wildlife Fund.
— Julie Gatehouse