title: Marsh rabbit mortalities tie pythons to the precipitous decline of mammals in the Everglades.
abstract: To address the ongoing debate over the impact of invasive species on native terrestrial wildlife, we conducted a large-scale experiment to test the hypothesis that invasive Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) were a cause of the precipitous decline of mammals in Everglades National Park (ENP). Evidence linking pythons to mammal declines has been indirect and there are reasons to question whether pythons, or any predator, could have caused the precipitous declines seen across a range of mammalian functional groups. Experimentally manipulating marsh rabbits, we found that pythons accounted for 77% of rabbit mortalities within 11 months of their translocation to ENP and that python predation appeared to preclude the persistence of rabbit populations in ENP. On control sites, outside of the park, no rabbits were killed by pythons and 71% of attributable marsh rabbit mortalities were classified as mammal predations. Burmese pythons pose a serious threat to the faunal communities and ecological functioning of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, which will probably spread as python populations expand their range.
authors: Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA ramccleery@ufl.edu.
authors: Robert A
authors: RA
authors: McCleery
authors: Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
authors: Adia
authors: A
authors: Sovie
authors: United States Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
authors: Robert N
authors: RN
authors: Reed
authors: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Gainesville, FL, USA.
authors: Mark W
authors: MW
authors: Cunningham
authors: United States Geological Survey, Southeast Ecological Science Center, Gainesville, FL, USA.
authors: Margaret E
authors: ME
authors: Hunter
authors: United States Geological Survey, Southeast Ecological Science Center, Davie, FL, USA.
authors: Kristen M
authors: KM
authors: Hart
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017821:Boidae / Q000502:physiology*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D005431:Florida; D020387:Food Chain; D058865:Introduced Species; D007793:Lagomorpha / Q000502:physiology*; D011157:Population Dynamics
keywords: Burmese python; Everglades National Park; marsh rabbit