<
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/rat-killers-in-paradise-an-eradication-program-remakes-a-tropical-atoll/>
"The black-and-white motion-triggered video looks like an outtake from a cheap
horror movie: A handful of rats circle a smooth, platter-sized mound of sand.
Suddenly a sea turtle hatchling appears, digging out of the nest. A rat grabs
it by its head and quickly drags it off-camera. A second hatchling is snatched
by another rat, flipped on its back and dragged off. The video ends.
But there’s more. In 2007 the first yellow crazy ants (
Anoplolepis
gracilipes) were identified on one of the same islands, or
motus, of
Tetiaroa Atoll in French Polynesia. There are some 200 species of ants in
Polynesia, all nonnative, but the yellow crazies are the worst. “They spray
formic acid that can blind or else deform the wings and legs of seabirds,” says
Jayna DeVore, one of the scientists working out of the Tetiaroa Society’s
eco-station on the main resort island of Onetahi. “I’ve seen chicks dancing in
their nests to get the ants off them.”
DeVore extends a collapsible pole with a GoPro camera atop it to peek into a
nest high up a mikimiki tree (
Coprosma linariifolia). She’s looking to see if
there’s a chick in it. The red-footed booby (
Sula sula) parent flaps its
wings and pokes at the camera with its long blue beak. Dozens more boobies and
frigatebirds (genus
Fregata) circle in the cerulean blue sky and occupy
nearby trees and bushes in the seabird colony we’ve waded and hiked to on
Hiraanae motu. Her seabird ecology study, along with those of other scientists
researching the atoll’s plants, insects, lizards, crabs, coral and algae may be
unique to the world.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to study an ecosystem before and after an apex
predator impacts it,” says Sebastian Steibl, an atoll ecologist at the
University of Auckland who leads the insect study during my visit in May 2022.
“Right now we’re building the first complete pre-eradication baseline that
anyone knows of.
“To date, all the studies have been analogies, comparing islands with or
without an invasive species, but ecology is more messy and complex than that,”
he adds. “For example, rat eradication on land will definitely cascade into the
marine environment.”
When in 1995 Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. reintroduced a top predator
that humans had eradicated — the wolf — it profoundly affected our
understanding of ecosystem recovery. How the eradication of a top predator
introduced by humans — the rat — will alter a very different ecosystem may help
define the next chapter in conservation science."
Via
Future Crunch issue 191:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
