Rats are not the only introduced rodents producing ecosystem impacts on islands |
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Authors: | Daniel Simberloff |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA |
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Abstract: | In addition to rats, nutria (Myocastor coypus) and the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) have certainly caused damage at an ecosystem level when introduced to islands, in both cases primarily by ecosystem engineering.
Of other introduced rodents successfully established on islands, the gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) may be in the process of damaging entire forest ecosystems, particularly by bark-stripping. Though introduced muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) have had ecosystem-level impacts in continental Europe, their impact on islands worldwide to which they have been introduced
has been very limited. The North American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) and Barbary ground squirrel (Atlantoxerus getulus) have each had substantial impacts when introduced to particular islands, but for neither species have these impacts yet
been demonstrated to spread through an entire ecosystem. Introduced house mice (Mus musculus) may well generate ecosystem impacts on remote islands lacking rats, and it is possible that explosions of house mice on
islands after rat eradication, a common occurrence, will lead in some instances to ecosystem impacts. |
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Keywords: | Beaver Castor canadensis Ecosystem engineer Myocastor coypus Nutria Rodent |
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