Sugar Gliders (Petaurus breviceps) are gliding, arboreal marsupials that are 'specialists' in that they require tree hollows for shelter and breeding and are seasonally dependent on exudates from Acacia and Eucalyptus species. The first aim of this project is to document the space use, social organisation, reproductive biology and demography of Sugar Gliders inhabiting a system of forest remnants in the Box-Ironbark forest region of central Victoria. These data will be compared with published information on Sugar Glider biology in large, continuous tracts of forest in order to determine how fragmentation affects the ecology and sociality of this species. The second aim of this investigation is to compare the genetic structure of Sugar glider populations in fragmented and continuous Box-Ironbark habitat in order to determine how the fragmentation process has influenced the mating system, level of inbreeding, population isolation and hence the long-term viability of gliders.
