Ecology 6th Edition by Charles Krebs

Exercise 11

Tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii), a small 6-10 kg macropod, were introduced to New Zealand about 130 years ago. In their native Australia, they have been subject to predation by a variety of predators such as the marsupial lion (now extinct) and the marsupial tiger (also extinct), as well as large lizards and now the introduced dingo and red fox. New Zealand has none of these predators. Discuss how tammar wallabies might evolve in the absence of predation. Under what conditions would you expect antipredator behaviors to disappear from the New Zealand population of tammar wallabies? Blumstein et al. (2004) provide data on this issue.