Protecting the secret life of caves
It's easy to overlook a cave system when assessing disaster impacts, but an extensive cave system beneath the Barkly Tableland, roughly 188 kilometres west of Mount Isa, is far more than holes in the ground.
Part of the Wiliyan-ngurru National Park, the Camoweal Caves are home to traditional owners the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu people, and unique subterranean life including two threatened species: the Ghost Bat and the Orange Leaf-nosed Bat.
In 2023, this vital underground environmental and cultural asset took a massive hit from floodwaters.
Understanding the damage to this hidden world required a broad team effort.
To achieve this, the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI) and the Dugalunji Aboriginal Corporation (DAC) partnered with the Lake Eyre Basin Rangers, the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu Aboriginal Corporation, the Australasian Speleological Federation, James Cook University's TropWATER centre, and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and Partnerships (QPWS&P).
Together, they assessed flood impacts across four Camooweal cave systems, two of them within Wiliyan-ngurra National Park, with two goals in mind: understand what the floods had done to biodiversity and groundwater and; build a baseline of environmental data for the future using environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling.
Assistance from the jointly funded Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) Environmental Recovery Program, administered by DETSI, was boosted by further investment from the First Nations Partnerships Program.
Collaborators also contributed in-kind support including project management, field assessments, traditional owner participation, and knowledge sharing.
Rather than relying solely on physical surveys, difficult and disruptive in a fragile cave environment, the team turned to eDNA sampling, collecting soil and water samples to detect traces of genetic material left behind by animals as they pass through.
Tissue samples collected from Ghost Bats is laying the groundwork for a species-specific eDNA primer, a scientific tool that will make it far easier to detect Ghost Bat presence in future monitoring without needing to see or disturb a single bat.
In welcome news, survey results confirmed Ghost Bats and Orange Leaf-nosed Bats are still active across the cave systems.
Additionally, the sampling detected a total of 37 vertebrate species, spanning frogs, birds, skinks and mammals.
This project shows how powerful eDNA sampling can be for understanding biodiversity in challenging environments, where traditional surveys are limited and disturbance needs to be kept to a minimum.
It also shows what's possible when traditional owner knowledge and leadership are woven into scientific methodology.
DETSI now has a baseline dataset for the Camooweal Caves that will guide future monitoring, help prioritise disaster recovery actions, and support the ongoing protection of threatened species in the region.
And with a bat-specific eDNA primer now in development, future monitoring will have a genuinely non-invasive tool for tracking these elusive species.
