Residential gardens can provide essential opportunities for native wildlife and represent a valuable way of creating new habitats. Bandicoots (marsupial family Peramelidae) are medium-sized digging mammals that play a valuable role in maintaining ecosystem health; retaining these important ecosystem engineers across urban landscapes, including in private gardens, can have enormous conservation benefits. Urbanisation is a significant threat for some bandicoot species, and therefore understanding the factors associated with their activity can help guide urban landscape and garden design. To identify key features associated with the activity of a local endemic bandicoot species, the quenda (Isoodon fusciventer), we carried out a camera trap survey of front and back yards for 65 residential properties in the City of Mandurah, Western Australia. We compared quenda activity with biotic and abiotic factors that could indicate potential predation risk (activity of domestic dogs Canis familiaris and cats Felis catus, and the presence of artificial or natural protective cover), food availability (including deliberate or inadvertent supplementary feeding, provision of water, and diggable surfaces) and garden accessibility (distance to bushland, permeability of boundary fencing, and garden position). Supplementary feeding was strongly associated with quenda activity. Quenda were also more active in back yards, and in gardens where there was greater vegetation cover. Of concern, quenda activity was positively associated with cat activity, which could reflect that straying pet cats are attracted to gardens that harbour wildlife populations, including quenda. Furthermore, almost half of the gardens showed cat activity despite only a small sample of the surveyed residents owning a pet cat. Results of this study can help guide the design of residential gardens to increase useful habitat for these important digging mammals. Vegetation, wood mulch and semi-permeable fencing can provide valuable resources needed to support the persistence of quendas across the rapidly changing urban landscape mosaic, where natural and managed (e.g., gardens and parks) green spaces are becoming less common and more isolated.

住宅花园可以为本地野生动物提供必不可少的机会，并代表了一种创造新栖息地的宝贵方式。袋狸（有袋动物科）是中型挖掘哺乳动物，在维持生态系统健康方面发挥着重要作用；在城市景观中保留这些重要的生态系统工程师，包括在私人花园中，可以带来巨大的保护效益。城市化对一些袋狸物种来说是一个重大威胁，因此了解与其活动相关的因素有助于指导城市景观和花园设计。为了确定与当地特有的袋狸物种活动相关的关键特征，昆达（Isoodon fusciventer)，我们对西澳大利亚曼杜拉市的 65 个住宅物业的前后院进行了相机陷阱调查。我们将 quenda 活动与可能表明潜在捕食风险的生物和非生物因素（家犬Canis familiaris和猫Felis catus的活动）进行了比较，以及人工或天然保护盖的存在）、食物可用性（包括有意或无意的补充喂养、供水和可挖掘的表面）和花园的可达性（到灌木丛的距离、边界围栏的渗透性和花园位置）。补充喂养与昆达活动密切相关。Quenda 在后院和植被覆盖较多的花园中也更加活跃。令人担忧的是，昆达活动与猫的活动呈正相关，这可能反映出流浪宠物猫被吸引到拥有野生动物种群的花园，包括昆达。此外，尽管只有一小部分接受调查的居民拥有一只宠物猫，但几乎一半的花园都表现出猫的活动。这项研究的结果可以帮助指导住宅花园的设计，为这些重要的挖掘哺乳动物增加有用的栖息地。植被、木覆盖物和半透性围栏可以提供宝贵的资源，以支持 quendas 在快速变化的城市景观镶嵌中的持久性，其中自然和管理（例如，花园和公园）的绿色空间变得越来越不常见和更加孤立。