Extreme mobility of the world’s largest flying mammals creates key challenges for management and conservation

The extreme inter-roost mobility reported here demonstrates the extent of the ecological linkages that nomadic flying-foxes provide across Australia's contemporary fragmented landscape, with profound implications for the ecosystem services and zoonotic dynamics of flying-fox populations. In addition, the extreme mobility means that impacts from local management actions can readily reverberate across jurisdictions throughout the species ranges; therefore, local management actions need to be assessed with reference to actions elsewhere and hence require national coordination. These findings underscore the need for sound understanding of animal movement dynamics to support evidence-based, transboundary conservation and management policy, tailored to the unique movement ecologies of species.