Invasive rat eradication strongly impacts plant recruitment on a tropical atoll

Rat eradication has become a common conservation intervention in island ecosystems and its effectiveness in protecting native vertebrates is increasingly well documented. Yet, the impacts of rat eradication on plant communities remain poorly understood. Here we compare native and non-native tree and palm seedling abundance before and after eradication of invasive rats (Rattus rattus) from Palmyra Atoll, Line Islands, Central Pacific Ocean. Overall, seedling recruitment increased for five of the six native trees species examined. While pre-eradication monitoring found no seedlings of Pisonia grandis, a dominant tree species that is important throughout the Pacific region, post-eradication monitoring documented a notable recruitment event immediately following eradication, with up to 688 individual P. grandis seedlings per 100m2 recorded one month post-eradication. Two other locally rare native trees with no observed recruitment in pre-eradication surveys had recruitment post-rat eradicat...鼠类清除已成为岛屿生态系统中常见的保护干预手段，其对本土脊椎动物的保护成效已有越来越多的详实研究佐证。然而，鼠类清除对植物群落的影响仍未得到充分认知。本研究对比了中太平洋莱恩群岛巴尔米拉环礁（Palmyra Atoll）入侵黑家鼠（Rattus rattus）清除前后，本土与外来乔木及棕榈幼苗的丰度情况。总体而言，本次研究涉及的6种本土乔木中有5种的幼苗补充量出现增长。其中，作为环太平洋区域广泛分布的优势乔木类群，大腺果藤（Pisonia grandis）在清除前的监测中未发现任何幼苗；而在鼠类清除完成后即刻便出现了显著的幼苗补充事件，清除后1个月的监测记录显示，每100平方米范围内最多可观测到688株大腺果藤幼苗。另有2种在清除前监测中未观测到幼苗补充的本土稀有乔木，在鼠类清除后也出现了幼苗补充……