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Koalas are connected to everything in nature

In nature, everything is connected. But some of the affinities between koalas and other animals may surprise you!

Honeys, like the eastern spiny beak, pollinate trees. Without honeys, new trees will have a hard time growing. No trees = no koalas.

If Flame Robins didn’t eat insects, the plants would be overpopulated with insects. Insects eat the leaves of many plants, including eucalyptus. Too many insects = there are no leaves on the trees for the koalas to eat.

Even butterflies are important to koalas. Butterflies, like the common brown, pollinate native plants when looking for nectar to drink. Unlike bees, which pollinate a small area very effectively, butterflies can carry pollen over great distances, which means they can bring new plants into an area and ensure a uniform distribution of a diversity of plants. Plant diversity at ground level helps other animals like kangaroos to thrive.

Caterpillars, the baby butterflies, eat plants. The common brown caterpillar eats herbs such as kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra), which has a tendency to become overly dominant in one area if left unhandled. The Aborigines used to manage kangaroo grass with regular small fires, but now that is not happening, we are lucky to have common brown caterpillars!

Macropods (kangaroos, kangaroos) make footprints through thick undergrowth as they search for food and water. When undergrowth is thick, koalas use kangaroo and kangaroo tracks to move from tree to tree every day. If there are no footprints through thick undergrowth, a koala is in danger of being preyed upon by dogs and they find it much more difficult to get through. Too much energy expended means that a koala has less energy to reproduce.

Grass seed eaters, such as long-billed Corellas, spread the seeds of grasses and help control weeds such as onion grass. Grassy forests are the perfect habitat for koalas as they facilitate movement from tree to tree.

Koalas also benefit other species. Black-chinned honeys are a small, threatened bird. They take koala skins to line their nests. Without koalas, whose fur will black-chinned Honeyeaters get? Kangaroos don’t sit still long enough, possums only come out at night. Will Baby Black-chinned Honeyeaters get too cold in their nests and die?

Some creatures, like the endangered Painted Honeyeater, have all but disappeared from koala habitat. Could this be why koalas are declining? We just don’t know.

People often ask us why koalas are declining, even in national parks. The truth is, no one is really sure. Each region has different challenges, but in general, koalas are declining too fast for their long-term survival.

We don’t know the answer to the decline of koalas, but we do know this: everything is connected. When the Gray Crowned Babblers disappeared from the You Yangs, did that affect the koalas? Maybe just a little bit. When Tasmanian Pafmelons, Eastern Barred Bandicoots, Brush-tailed Wallabies, and Dingoes disappeared, did that affect the koalas? A little + a little + a little + a little = a lot.

The fact is, we have lost species of insects, birds, reptiles, and plants from the koala forests that koalas depend on, but we still expect koalas to reproduce well (but not too much) and live long, healthy lives. It is surprising that they are surviving.

This rule applies worldwide. Nature is an intricate web that we don’t fully understand yet. We are part of that network and without it we will not survive either.

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