The Southern Brown Bandicoot prefers dense vegetation, including wetland fringes and heathland. It has responded well to fox control, with many populations in public land where fox control occurs now at greater abundance than previously (Morris et al. 1998). Some subpopulations within fox-proof fences have reached very high densities.

The Southern Brown Bandicoot is omnivorous, eating both plants and animals. It forages for food mainly by digging in the leaf litter and soil to find insects, fungi, plant root nodules and bulbs. It also eats fruit, seeds and other plant material found above ground. Bandicoots prefer to live in areas with thick vegetation and construct nests under plants on the ground. They do not create their own burrow, but occasionally use the burrows of other species (Paull 2008).

The Southern Brown Bandicoot has a fragmented distribution occurring in the south-west of Western Australia (including Daw Island), small parts of South Australia (including Kangaroo Island and some islands in the Nuyts Archipelago), southern Victoria, Tasmania (including Bruny, Three Hummock and West Sister Islands) and southern coastal New South Wales. In South Australia, its range has contracted substantially due to habitat clearance, but subpopulations remain in the South East (Le Duff and Stratman 2009), Mt Lofty Ranges (Long 2010) and on Kangaroo Island (Jones et al. 2010).

The Southern Brown Bandicoot occurs in many protected areas, as well as managed forests and private land. Conservation objective is to maintain current range and abundance for most subpopulations, and to improve status of I. o. obesulus in south-eastern Australia. Maintenance of fox control in south west and south east mainland Australia is required to prevent a continuing decline.