title: Past and estimated future impact of invasive alien mammals on insular threatened vertebrate populations.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.
authors.forename: Erin E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: McCreless
authors.affiliation: Point Adams Research Station, Fish Ecology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries, PO Box 155, Hammond, Oregon 97121, USA.
authors.forename: David D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Huff
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.
authors.forename: Donald A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Croll
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.
authors.forename: Bernie R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Tershy
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Long Marine Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.|Island Conservation, 2161 Delaware Avenue, Suite A, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.
authors.forename: Dena R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Spatz
authors.affiliation: Island Conservation, 2161 Delaware Avenue, Suite A, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.
authors.forename: Nick D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Holmes
authors.affiliation: BirdLife International, David Attenborough Building, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB23QZ, UK.|Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB23EJ, UK.
authors.forename: Stuart H M
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Butchart
authors.affiliation: Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wilcox
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D056727:Endangered Species; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D006801:Humans; D058865:Introduced Species; D062312:Islands; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011336:Probability; D011891:Rain; D051381:Rats; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D013045:Species Specificity