Something went missing: cessation of Traditional Owner land management and rapid mammalian population collapses in the semi-arid region of the Murray–Darling Basin, southeastern Australia

The nineteenth century mass mammal extinctions in the semi-arid zone of Murray‒Darling basin, southeastern Australia, are examined context prior traditional land management. A model grassland dynamics reveals a multi-trophic level productive pulse one to five years post-fire, followed by senescence and increasing flammability. Traditional Owner patch burning optimized human mammalian food (including tubers, seeds fungi) decreased fire risk. Over at least 40 000 years, persistence abundance fauna responded this energetically closed self-reinforcing In 1830, depopulation (disease, massacres displacement) effectively ended management, an ecologically traumatic event that extinguished these productivity pulses. Associated populations c. 20 species collapsed, all eco-engineering mycophagous species, such as bilbies, bettongs bandicoots, rapidly disappeared. management increased productivity, habitat heterogeneity reduced wildfire risk, underpinning abundance. This has remained unrecognized most mammalogists managers. Blaming predominantly on additions Europeans (introduction ungulates, feral grazers predators etc.), disastrous they were, fails acknowledge initial cause rarity, i.e. loss niches when was subtracted from country. As ecosystems continue degrade, understanding primary is fundamental improved Although too late for extinct respect for, inclusion of, knowledge provides direction future