According to new University of Sydney research – published in the international biodiversity and ecology journal Ecography – koalas are choosing alternate feeding trees in an attempt to survive higher daytime temperatures and extreme events including droughts and heatwaves.

The study, the first of its kind, was led by Mathew Crowther of the School of Biological Sciences.

Dr Crowther said, while the study was conducted over three years on Liverpool Plains farmland, the results were applicable to the Lower Hunter including areas such as Paterson and Dungog.

“The lack of understanding of the importance of shelter trees were considered equally with feed trees when examining the viability of a koala habitat,” Dr Crowther said.

“Exposure to prolonged high temperatures can result in heat stress, dehydration and eventually death.

“One quarter of the koalas we studied perished in a heatwave in 2009 and Australia has just experienced the hottest year since climate records began.”

Dr Crowther said the research called for a rethink of koala management and conservation.

“The implication is that long-standing land management practices of retaining and planting feed trees for koalas needs to be expanded to include shelter trees within the home range of each koala,” he said.

“An urgent emphasis needs to be placed on retaining taller, mature trees such as remnant paddock trees, and the planting of both food and shelter trees, especially in more protected gullies 

to try to offset the impact of high 

temperatures.”