Dramatic increase in the Zembretta Yelkouan shearwater breeding population following ship rat eradication spurs interest in managing a 1500-year old invasion

• Published in: Biological Invasions
• Main Authors: Bourgeois, Karen, Ouni, Ridha, Pascal, Michel, Dromzée, Sylvain, Fourcy, Damien, Abiadh, Awatef
• Other Authors: A dos d'îles, 101 Val de Sibourg, Association for the study and conservation of insular biodiversity, Laboratoire d'écologie animale, Campus Universitaire El Manar I, Faculté des Sciences Mathématiques, Physiques et Naturelles de Tunis (FST), Université de Tunis El Manar (UTM)-Université de Tunis El Manar (UTM), Écologie et santé des écosystèmes (ESE), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-AGROCAMPUS OUEST, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro), PIM Initiative (Petites Iles de Mediterranée) & Tunisian agency APAL (Agence de Protection et d'Aménagement du Littoral)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: ship rat; rattus rattus; old invasion; eradication; mediterranean island; yelkouan; shearwater; puffinus yelkouan; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Rattus rattus
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01210187; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-013-0419-x

The ship rat (Rattus rattus) was introduced 1,500 years ago to the Zembra Archipelago (Tunisia) and was eradicated in October-November 2009 on two of its islands, Zembretta and Zembrettina. This eradication was performed 2 years after the discovery of a small colony of Yelkouan shearwaters (Puffinus yelkouan), a species recently up-listed to the vulnerable IUCN extinction risk category. For 2 years before and 3 years after rat eradication, the Zembretta Yelkouan shearwater breeding colony was checked yearly at the end of the breeding season. The number of recorded breeding pairs reaching 176 and 145, respectively, increases of 10.4 and 8.5-fold two and 3 years after rat eradication. This experiment shows that eradication of an ancient introduced ship rat population has dramatically improved the Zembretta Yelkouan shearwater breeding population very quickly. This result suggests that managing even long-introduced populations might well be fruitful.