The koalas at St Bees Island live on a tropical continental island some 30km off the coast near Mackay. We are studying this comparatively healthy group of koalas, living across several areas on the island using a range of techniques.
Our work here begain in 1998, and we have been following this group constistently since then. We are studying the population dynamics, eco-physiology and thegenetics of this population, which may hold the key to the recolonisation by koalas of revegetated areas of the mainland in the future.
The St Bees Island koalas have been the source of valuable information of koala biology, and we have produced many keystone scientific papers as a result of our work, including:
Ellis, W., S. FitzGibbon, et al. (2015). "The Role of Bioacoustic Signals in Koala Sexual Selection: Insights from Seasonal Patterns of Associations Revealed with GPS-Proximity Units." PLoS ONE 10(7): e0130657.
Lee, K., J. Seddon, et al. (2013). "Genetic diversity in natural and introduced island populations of koalas in Queensland." Australian Journal of Zoology 60(5): 303-310.
Charlton, B. D., D. Reby, et al. (2012). "Estimating the Active Space of Male Koala Bellows: Propagation of Cues to Size and Identity in a Eucalyptus Forest." Plos One 7(9): e45420.
Melzer, A., W. Ellis, et al. (2013). Central Queensland's Koala Islands. Conserving central Queensland's koalas. N. Flint and A. Melzer. Rockhampton, Queensland, Koala Research Centre of Central Queensland: 25-28.
Pye, G. W., W. Ellis, et al. (2013). "Serum vitamin D levels in free-ranging koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)." Journal of zoo and wildlife medicine : official publication of the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians 44(2): 480-483.
Schmidt, D. A., G. W. Pye, et al. (2013). "Fat-soluble vitamin and mineral comparisons between zoo-based and free-ranging koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)." Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine 44(4): 1079-1082.