Nest boxes have grown in popularity as a habitat management tool in Australia during the last decade. This management use remains contentious because some studies suggest nest boxes are ineffective. There are three recent contentions: (i) nest boxes mostly benefit common species, (ii) exotic species may be dominant users of nest boxes, and (iii) species of conservation concern use nest boxes infrequently. We address these contentions using data from 1865 nest boxes involving eight nest box designs. These nest boxes were installed predominantly <200 m from a road in association with highway duplication and re‐alignment across 16 projects in New South Wales. The Common Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula ) is the species of most relevance to contention 1. It used 9% of boxes overall including 26% of ‘possum ’ designated boxes. The most frequent nest box users were small petaurid gliders (mostly Sugar Gliders, Petaurus breviceps ) which used 63% of ‘small glider’ designated boxes. This nest box and another suited to the Sugar Glider comprised 40% of all boxes installed, so it is not surprising that this species might be a common user. Exotic species were uncommon users of the nest boxes enabling contention 2 to be rejected. Active hives of Feral Honeybees (Apis mellifera ) occupied just 1% of boxes, and another 1% of boxes were used by introduced rodents and birds. The Squirrel Glider (Petaurus norfolcensis ) is the species most relevant to contention 3. It was seen in 80 boxes across 11 projects, representing 7% of the three types most frequently used. These observations are not consistent with the third contention. Nest boxes can provide many important insights about the requirements and interactions of hollow‐dependent fauna. However, they are not intended as an alternative to retaining hollow‐bearing trees.

中文翻译：

---

巢箱争用：巢箱被它们所针对的物种使用吗？

在过去十年中，巢箱已成为澳大利亚的栖息地管理工具，日渐流行。这种管理用途仍然存在争议，因为一些研究表明巢箱无效。最近有三个争论点：（i）巢箱主要造福于普通物种；（ii）外来物种可能是巢箱的主要使用者；（iii）具有保护意义的物种很少使用巢箱。我们使用来自1865个巢箱的数据（涉及八种巢箱设计）来解决这些争执。这些巢箱的安装主要是在距道路不到200 m的地方进行，同时还要在新南威尔士州的16个项目中进行高速公路重复和重新对齐。普通灌木尾负鼠（Trichosurus vulpecula）是与争用1最相关的物种。它使用了9％的盒子，包括26％的盒子。负鼠指定的盒子。巢箱使用者最多的是小型petaurid滑翔机（主要是Sugar Gliders，Petrarus breviceps），它们使用了63％的“小型滑翔机”指定箱。这个巢箱和另一个适合糖滑翔机的巢箱占已安装所有巢箱的40％，因此这种物种成为普通用户并不奇怪。外来物种是巢箱的罕见用户，使得争用2被拒绝。活跃的蜂巢蜂（Apis mellifera）只占据了1％的盒子，另外1％的盒子被引入的啮齿动物和鸟类使用。松鼠滑翔机（Petrarus norfolcensis）是与争用3最相关的物种。在11个项目的80个盒子中看到了该物种，占最常用的三种类型的7％。这些观察结果与第三个论点不一致。巢箱可以提供有关依赖空心动物的需求和相互作用的许多重要见解。但是，它们并非替代保留空心树木的替代方法。