SYDNEY — When Tanya Latty, an entomologist at the University of Sydney, started studying a species of velvet worm 18 months ago, she thought it was just a side project.
Moreover, like many endemic insect and arthropod species, velvet worms are highly local. Not only do the particular worms Latty studies not occur outside Australia, their ranges are very small. If a large segment of the population is wiped out, the loss significantly affects the genetic diversity of the species, reducing its ability to respond to future changes in the environment.
Kate Umbers, a biologist at Western Sydney University, is similarly worried about — and unable to reach — her own study subjects, which live in Kosciuszko National Park, in New South Wales. National parks across the state are closed because of the fires. Umbers’ swimming grasshoppers, like Latty’s velvet worms, are short-range endemic species. Multiple fires, occurring too soon after one another, could eventually spell the end for the species.
But wildfires create opportunities for invasive species, too, and exacerbate ecological problems already underway. Feral cats travel long distances toward burned areas to prey on fleeing native reptiles; in Australia, feral cats eat as many as 650 million reptiles each year.
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