Out of the Classroom, into the Rainforest

Trekking through the Australian tropical rainforest, three EBIO students and one Boulder County local (Alyson Cheney, Meghan Wiebe, Kayla Carey and Chelsea Walls pictured left to right) scan the ground for a tiny hopping marsupial, the Musky Rat Kangaroo commonly called the Hypsy.  As the smallest member of the kangaroo family, this furry little animal has a tail and a triangular face of a rat, but hops like a kangaroo.  The students are carrying out research abroad with SIT Study Abroad. The study evaluates the population changes of the tiny kangaroo by surveying national parks in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

The Hypsy lives in the wet tropical rainforest of northern Queensland, but historical clearing of forests for farming and timber has made locating suitable habitat more difficult for the Hypsy. The rainforests of the wet tropics have been cleared almost everywhere except for the northeastern tablelands due to its high elevation. They rely heavily on the fruiting trees of the rainforest. Experts are concerned about the future of tropical rainforest as climate change threatens to disrupt weather patterns and ecosystem stability.

Besides being cute, the musky rat kangaroos are extremely important to maintaining the diversity of other rainforest species because they are vital seed dispersers. As frugivores, they consume forest fruit, but also store rainforest fruits in leaf litter. “By scattering seeds they help a variety of rainforest trees grow,” said Chelsea Walls, CU senior studying Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. The little critters are vital in maintaining a diverse ecosystem, which helps to increase the variety of vegetation and wildlife in the environment.

Kayla Carey, a junior Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major, describes observing two of the furry critters chasing each other in a defensive manner; “The males are very territorial of their home ranges and defend their territory against others with behavior that resembles a small game of tag.”  This is a common behavior demonstrated by the miniature kangaroos.  

The students hiked around the scenic Crater Lakes and Gadgarra National Parks for hours, watching and recording the number and behavior of the Musky Rat Kangaroos. “Animal observations take patience. Sometimes you see many animals every other minute, darting across the trail, but other times you won’t see one for an hour” said Meghan Wiebe, also a CU senior, double majoring in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies. The researchers combined their data with past surveys from other national parks in the World Heritage Area and found that more Hypsy’s were spotted during the current dry season than in previous studies from the wet season. The increased sightings are encouraging, but unfortunately may be due to a decrease in the local predators, like pythons or Australia’s carnivorous Quoll. On one end we are excited to see the little kangaroos flourish, but ecosystems are extremely complex and we don’t know what this might mean for future rainforest health.

“We gained a new appreciation for how much even the smallest species can effect the entire ecosystem” Alyson Cheney a Lafayette local and Environmental Studies major at Connecticut College. The team’s research advisor and field biologist, Dr. John Grant, pointed out that it is more important than ever to work on research and conservation efforts in the area.  There is no way to tell what is going to happen to the wet tropics in the future, but care must be taken to preserve the beauty of such an ecologically significant location.

Story by Alyson Cheney, Meghan Wiebe, Kayla Carey, and Chelsea Walls
Photo Credit: By The Rambling Man (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons