Publication Date:
2004-09-28
Description:
The arrival of humans on oceanic islands has precipitated a wave of extinctions among the islands' native birds. Nevertheless, the magnitude of this extinction event varies markedly between avifaunas. We show that the probability that a bird species has been extirpated from each of 220 oceanic islands is positively correlated with the number of exotic predatory mammal species established on those islands after European colonization and that the effect of these predators is greater on island endemic species. In contrast, the proportions of currently threatened species are independent of the numbers of exotic mammalian predator species, suggesting that the principal threat to island birds has changed through time as species susceptible to exotic predators have been driven extinct.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Blackburn, Tim M -- Cassey, Phillip -- Duncan, Richard P -- Evans, Karl L -- Gaston, Kevin J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2004 Sep 24;305(5692):1955-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. t.blackburn@bham.ac.uk〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15448269" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Atlantic Islands
;
Biological Evolution
;
*Birds
;
Cats
;
*Ecosystem
;
Emigration and Immigration
;
Europe
;
Humans
;
Mammals/*physiology
;
Models, Biological
;
Pacific Islands
;
Population Dynamics
;
Predatory Behavior
;
Probability
;
Rats
;
West Indies
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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