Volume 142, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 43-52

Top predators have been described as highly interactive keystone
species. Their decline has been linked to secondary extinctions and
their increase has been linked to ecological restoration. Several
authors have recently argued that the dingo Canis lupus dingo is
another example of a top predator that maintains mesopredators and
generalist herbivores at low and stable numbers, thereby increasing
biodiversity and productivity. Due to the sensitivity of many
Australian species to introduced mesopredators and herbivores, the top
predator hypothesis predicts that threatened species will not survive
where dingoes are rare or absent. However, several threatened species
have survived inside the Dingo Barrier Fence (DBF). We present a new
view on the survival of the yellow-footed rock-wallaby Petrogale
xanthopus xanthopus and the malleefowl Leipoa ocellata inside the DBF
where the dingo is considered very rare, or in areas where the dingo
is believed to have been eradicated several decades ago. We found that
dingoes co-occurred with both threatened species. Dingoes were present
at all wallaby colonies surveyed and occurred throughout their range.
The most common predator detected in areas inhabited by the wallabies
was in fact the dingo, and we found no significant difference between
dingo abundance inside compared to outside the DBF. Malleefowl nests
were found to be scent marked by dingoes at the three sites that we
surveyed, despite these sites being close to human settlement and
sheep farms, and in small and fragmented patches of wilderness. These
findings provide further evidence for an association between the
presence of dingoes and the survival of threatened species, which is
in agreement with the top predator hypothesis. The results of this
study challenges the current assumption that the presence and
ecological consequence of dingoes in sheep country are negligible and
we suggest that wildlife managers verify whether dingoes are present
before predator control is initiated.