Original factual paraphrases checked against the individually linked expert sources on 1 October 2026. They supply a complete offline route. They are not quotations, photos, copied tables, local records or purported permission. Full source access is link-first and subject to the item's rights/local school licence. This combined web has no supplied population quantities, local co-occurrence, feeding rate or actual change result.
Source access on 1 October 2026
The Museum PDF is currently unavailable. Its original link and three alternate live addresses returned HTTP 404; the Museum learning-resources page says resources are temporarily unavailable while the website is updated. The named Table 1 facts below were cross-checked in indexed official source text. No current Museum PDF download or page-layout check is claimed. Use these short original capsules to teach now; external downloads are optional. Table and named-row locators avoid relying on an unverified PDF page number.
Six feeding possibilities
F1 · eucalypt leaves → Caterpillars
Forest Red Gum leaves are listed as food for caterpillars. Source and locator: Table 1, Forest Red Gum row. One listed plant/consumer example; not every eucalypt or caterpillar species.
F2 · wattle leaves → Caterpillars
Black Wattle leaves are listed as food for caterpillars. Source and locator: Table 1, Black Wattle row. One listed plant/consumer example; not every wattle or caterpillar species.
F3 · caterpillars → Squirrel Glider
Caterpillars are included in the Squirrel Glider diet list. Source and locator: Table 1, Squirrel Glider diet row. A documented feeding possibility, not a measured local rate.
F4 · eucalypt pollen / nectar / sap → Squirrel Glider
The Squirrel Glider diet account includes eucalypt pollen, nectar and sap. Source and locator: August 2008 report, printed p3, Diet; Queensland Museum Table 1, Squirrel Glider diet row, corroborates. Plant family/resource account; no claim it eats Forest Red Gum leaves.
F5 · wattle sap → Squirrel Glider
The Squirrel Glider diet account includes wattle sap. Source and locator: August 2008 report, printed p3, Diet. Wattle resource account; no claim it eats Black Wattle leaves.
F6 · Squirrel Glider → Lace Monitor
Lace Monitor is listed as a predator of Squirrel Glider. Source and locator: Table 1, Squirrel Glider “what eats me” row. A listed interaction, not proof of local co-occurrence or frequency.
The group labels Eucalypt/Wattle resources deliberately distinguish leaves for caterpillars from pollen/nectar/sap or sap for the glider. Source examples include Forest Red Gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis) and Black Wattle (Acacia concurrens); neither example establishes every species in that group or a local feeding event. The Squirrel Glider is Petaurus norfolcensis; the Lace Monitor is Varanus varius. The NSW report was published August 2008; its 2024 host-folder date does not make it a 2024 study. Historical conservation legislation/status is outside this pack. The NSW Parks general monitor account includes mammals in its diet, but does not itself verify the specific glider link.
Three process capsules
G1
Photosynthesis uses light energy, carbon dioxide and water to make sugars. Soil mineral nutrients are also needed by plants; they are not a replacement for light energy.
Primary source 1 · Mycorrhizas, introduction and “What the fungus does”. Primary source 2 · The Carbon Cycle, 16 June 2011, Fast Carbon Cycle.
G2
Saprotrophic fungi use dead organic material. Decomposition can return mineral nutrients to soil; carbon also moves through organisms and back into the atmosphere through respiration and decomposition.
Primary source 1 · Fungal ecology, The three fungal lifestyles, saprotroph definition. Primary source 2 · Background, Decomposers and soil nutrients. Primary source 3 · Fast Carbon Cycle.
G3
Energy changes form rather than being created or destroyed. Sunlight can become chemical energy in producers; feeding transfers some chemical energy, and respiration dissipates energy as heat. Energy does not recycle through soil back into sunlight.
Primary source 1 · Laws of energy, conservation of energy. Primary source 2 · Background, energy flow and heat during mammal digestion. Primary source 3 · Fast Carbon Cycle, sugar use by plants and animals and decomposition returning carbon dioxide and energy.
G2 describes a mineral-nutrient loop and a carbon cycle, not one universal path for all matter. Only some fungi are saprotrophs; not all fungi are decomposers. Plants also exchange matter with air/water. Soil is not a store of recycled sunlight. Avoid “plants make energy” or “energy disappears”; transformation and heat dissipation keep energy conservation explicit. None of these capsules assigns an energy-transfer percentage or predicts a numerical population change.
Read a possibility as a possibility
A remaining food path might help a population if that food is available, usable and sufficient. The arrow does not prove this. Lower food production could affect survival or reproduction and later abundance if food limits the population. Other food, stored reserves, movement, timing and interactions can change or delay the effect. A learner may justify increase, decrease, little change, delayed change or uncertainty within a model's stated facts. A prediction is checked for its mechanism, condition and limits, rather than a guessed universal sign.