1. Environment & Climate

The Melomys Rubicola

Also known as the Bramble Cay Melomys

MICHAEL DEA

The "first mammalian extinction caused by human-induced climate change" (Waller, Gynther, & Leung, 2017)

Physical Characteristics

  • body length: 148-165 mm; tail length: 145-185 mm
  • Reddish-brown fur
  • Pale underbelly
  • Rounded ears
  • Mosaic tailed,  with prehensible tip

(Hand-drawn image of Melomys Rubicola pictured right)

Behavior

  • Nocturnal
  • Mostly herbivorous 
  • Solitary
  • Lived in burrows under densely vegetated areas of the island

(Photo of Melomys Rubicola during nocturnal hours pictures right)

Environmental Roles:

  • Dispersed Seeds
  • Prey for Predators
  • Indicator Species (for Coastal/Island Ecosystems at low levels)
  • Ecosystem Engineers (created burrows)

(Photo of Melomys Rubicola in daylight pictured right)

Bramble Cay:

  • Coral Cay (a low bank or reef of coral, rock, or sand)
  • Melomys Rubicola was only ever recorded here
  • Off the Northeast Coast of Australia, in the Torres Strait

Cays?:

  • Islands made out of coral, rubble, and vegetation
  • Bramble Cay is low-lying (low in altitude)
  • Extremely susceptible to ocean changes

(Image of coral cay pictured above)

What caused its endangerment?:

  • Global Warming/Climate Change
  • Rising Sea Levels
  • Higher Tides + Storm Surges

This was especially bad for the Melomys Rubicola

Habitat Erosion/Habitat Loss 

  • Climate change/Global Warming → rising sea levels → habitat erosion/saltwater intrusion/inundation → loss of vegetation + Predation (somewhat)

How Do We Know?

  •  Over time, much of the low-lying cay’s vegetation could be visibly seen being overtaken by the rising sea levels.

Conservation Efforts:

  • Some effort made by environmental conservationists and scientists, (particularly in 2008) 8 
  • However, since the primary cause of the species’s extinction was rising sea levels, not much could be done at such an isolated location.

The 2008 Plan 8 :

  • Plans established focused primarily on monitoring the species, unable to find an actionable process to truly save it
  • Additionally, plans didn’t receive government funding
  • The little surveys and monitoring there was showed a continuously diminishing population

Is there any other species that has/could fill its niche?

The Bramble Cay Melomys was the only mammal recorded on the island, so no other species on the island could fill its niche in the way that the Bramble Cay Melomys did,. Islands are unique in the way that their ecosystems are greatly isolated and thus serve as caricatures for ecological changes. The Melomys Rubicola's rapid extinction serves as a grim example of the speed at which species are now becoming extinct as climate change worsens.

Though this may have been a small species, it's death made an incredibly large impact on the world.

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(Image of coral cay pictured above)

Though this may have been a small species, it's death made an incredibly large impact on the world.