Invasive mammal eradication on islands results in substantial conservation gains

摘要: More than US$21 billion is spent annually on biodiversity conservation. Despite their importance for preventing or slowing extinctions and preserving biodiversity, conservation interventions are rarely assessed systematically global impact. Islands house a disproportionately higher amount of compared with mainlands, much which highly threatened extinction. Indeed, island species make up nearly two-thirds recent extinctions. therefore critical targets We used an extensive literature database review paired expert interviews to estimate the benefits increasingly action stem loss: eradication invasive mammals islands. found 236 native terrestrial insular faunal (596 populations) that benefitted through positive demographic and/or distributional responses from 251 eradications 181 Seven (eight were negatively impacted by mammal eradication. Four had International Union Conservation Nature (IUCN) Red List extinction-risk categories reduced as direct result eradication, no moved category. predict 107 birds, mammals, reptiles IUCN List-6% all these species-likely have Because monitoring outcomes sporadic limited, impacts likely greater we report here. Our results highlight islands protecting world's most imperiled fauna.