Tropical island conservation: Rat eradication for species recovery

• Published in: Biological conservation Vol. 185; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Russell, James C., Holmes, Nick D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-05-2015
• Subjects: Annual precipitation; Bioclimate; Conservation; Ecology; Islands; Primary productivity; Rats; Rattus; Recovery; Restoration; Tropical environments; Workshop; PSE, New Zealand; New Zealand, North I., Auckland; Primary productivity; Workshop; Restoration; Rattus; Bioclimate
• ISSN: 0006-3207; 1873-2917
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2015.01.009

•Invasive rat eradication is a fundamental tool for island restoration.•Tropical islands have high biodiversity value and warrant protection from invasive rats.•Invasive rat eradications fail 2–2.5times more often in the tropics than elsewhere.•Knowledge of the ecological conditions to maximise rat eradication success on tropical islands can be improved.•Invasive rat eradication leads to important species recovery and habitat protection.
Invasive rats have found their way to most islands throughout the world, where they have had and continue to have severe negative impacts on insular biota. Techniques developed in temperate regions to eradicate invasive rats from islands have proven to be one of the most powerful conservation tools available for island restoration. Tropical islands contain unique biodiversity also threatened by invasive rats, but eradication attempts in tropical environments have a higher failure rate. In particular rat eradications have failed more often on islands with high mean annual temperatures, and medium levels of annual precipitation which remain constant throughout the year. How these tropical ecological conditions interact to influence the likelihood of eradication success remains poorly understood. To synthesise current knowledge on the eradication of rats on tropical islands this special issue presents nine papers following a workshop reviewing tropical island rat eradications convened in Auckland, New Zealand in August 2013. These papers present state-of-the-art reviews of the field, best practice recommendations for operational implementation, novel research on rat ecology which will inform future eradication planning, and evidence of species recovery following rat eradication. In the future, biologists will need to contribute to our understanding of tropical island dynamics, particularly with respect to rat eradication, while eradication practitioners should seek to understand more deeply the role of tropical environments in eradication success, so that the implementation and success rate of tropical island rat eradications can increase, and the potential for tropical island restoration fully realised.