Past and estimated future impact of invasive alien mammals on insular threatened vertebrate populations

Erin E. McCreless (), David D. Huff, Donald A. Croll, Bernie R. Tershy, Dena R. Spatz, Nick D. Holmes, Stuart H. M. Butchart and Chris Wilcox
Additional contact information
Erin E. McCreless: Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz
David D. Huff: Point Adams Research Station, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries
Donald A. Croll: Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz
Bernie R. Tershy: Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz
Dena R. Spatz: Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz
Nick D. Holmes: Island Conservation
Stuart H. M. Butchart: BirdLife International
Chris Wilcox: Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Invasive mammals on islands pose severe, ongoing threats to global biodiversity. However, the severity of threats from different mammals, and the role of interacting biotic and abiotic factors in driving extinctions, remain poorly understood at a global scale. Here we model global extirpation patterns for island populations of threatened and extinct vertebrates. Extirpations are driven by interacting factors including invasive rats, cats, pigs, mustelids and mongooses, native species taxonomic class and volancy, island size, precipitation and human presence. We show that controlling or eradicating the relevant invasive mammals could prevent 41–75% of predicted future extirpations. The magnitude of benefits varies across species and environments; for example, managing invasive mammals on small, dry islands could halve the extirpation risk for highly threatened birds and mammals, while doing so on large, wet islands may have little benefit. Our results provide quantitative estimates of conservation benefits and, when combined with costs in a return-on-investment framework, can guide efficient conservation strategies.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12488 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12488

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12488

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().