Declining populations in one of the last refuges for threatened mammal species 8 in northern Australia 9 10

26 Australia has contributed a disproportionate number of the world’s mammal extinctions over the past 27 200 years , with the greatest loss of species occurring through the continent’s southern and central arid 28 regions. Many taxonomically and ecologically similar species are now undergoing widespread decline 29 across the northern Australian mainland, possibly driven by predation by feral cats and changed fire 30 regimes. Here we report marked recent declines of native mammal species in one of Australia’s few 31 A u th o r M a n u s c ri p t

[1]  M. Calver,et al.  Direct evidence implicates feral cat predation as the primary cause of failure of a mammal reintroduction programme , 2016 .

[2]  Jeff Short.  Predation by feral cats key to the failure of a long-term reintroduction of the western barred bandicoot (Perameles bougainville) , 2016, Wildlife Research.

[3]  Christopher N. Johnson,et al.  Amplified predation after fire suppresses rodent populations in Australia’s tropical savannas , 2016, Wildlife Research.

[4]  M. Lawes,et al.  Small mammals decline with increasing fire extent in northern Australia: evidence from long-term monitoring in Kakadu National Park , 2015 .

[5]  K. Brennan,et al.  A guide for the use of remote cameras for wildlife survey in northern Australia , 2015 .

[6]  B. Murphy,et al.  There is a critical weight range for Australia's declining tropical mammals , 2014 .

[7]  José J. Lahoz-Monfort,et al.  Ignoring Imperfect Detection in Biological Surveys Is Dangerous: A Response to ‘Fitting and Interpreting Occupancy Models' , 2014, PloS one.

[8]  J. Woinarski,et al.  The mammal fauna of the Sir Edward Pellew island group, Northern Territory, Australia: refuge and death-trap , 2011 .

[9]  Richard B. Chandler,et al.  unmarked: An R Package for Fitting Hierarchical Models of Wildlife Occurrence and Abundance , 2011 .

[10]  Carol Palmer,et al.  The disappearing mammal fauna of northern Australia: context, cause, and response , 2011 .

[11]  Carol Palmer,et al.  Monitoring indicates rapid and severe decline of native small mammals in Kakadu National Park, northern Australia , 2010 .

[12]  I. Abbott,et al.  The spread of the cat, Felis catus, in Australia: re-examination of the current conceptual model with additional information. , 2008 .

[13]  Darryl I. MacKenzie,et al.  Assessing the fit of site-occupancy models , 2004 .

[14]  John C. Z. Woinarski,et al.  Response of vegetation and vertebrate fauna to 23 years of fire exclusion in a tropical Eucalyptus open forest, Northern Territory, Australia , 2004 .

[15]  N. L. McKenzie,et al.  Patterns in the modern decline of western Australia's vertebrate fauna: Causes and conservation implications , 1989 .