The long-term importance of urban fauna hollows

with Brian Gepp

Many peri-urban areas in Australia have been devastated by wildfires, leading to the decline of hollow-bearing trees and, subsequently, the loss of suitable habitat for hollow-dependent species. Fauna boxes were proposed as a temporary solution and were installed as a substitute for natural tree hollows; however the visitation rate of hollow-dependent species was low. It was suspected that the nest box microclimate differed from the microclimate of natural tree hollows. To better understand the differences between fauna boxes and natural hollows, Quang’s Honours project focused on two main objectives: to investigate the internal structure of natural tree hollows and to recreate the structure of natural hollows in artificial fauna boxes to potentially encourage greater use. Temperature testing showed that the newly designed fauna boxes had better insulation and moderated their microclimate more than previous designs, which supports further application of the new design and ongoing research to investigate its potential benefit to fauna.