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Comparisons are made between the faunal communities of the Lake Lyre South islands and the mainland. The low species diversity on the islands is unlikely to result from lack of dispersal opportunities. Rather, a response to a series of ecological factors is implicated. The nature and size of the island habitats preclude some species, and the temporal dynamism of mound spring habitats limits the endemic spring biota. Competition or predation may have prohibited the establishment of other species. Suppression of predation upon painted dragons and house mice may have allowed these species to exist at very high densities. This supports other work which suggests that maintenance of high densities of the principal predator in an ecosystem may favour species which are preferentially hunted by secondary predators.