The Economist October 31, 2020 pp70 |Science & Technology| Ecology | “Rats, palms and Palmyra Island” “The law of unintended consequences manifests itself on a Pacific atoll”
Summary of Article
“Palmyra, an atoll that is one of the most remote specks of land in the Pacific Ocean” that is not permanently inhabited by humans is the scene of an experiment in ecology. During WWII there was an American airbase and with that came humans, ships, plans and rats. Over the years the rats wiped out more than 100 animal species including birds by eating their eggs etc. but they also damaged the native plant habitat. Rats primary food source is seeds and fruit and over time this altered the plant ecosystem. A research team from UCSB led by Ana Miller-ter Kuile have worked to successfully remove rats from many of the atolls. They then studied the change in plant life over years seeing a 14-fold increase in trees which was the focus of their study. As an unintended consequence, this boosted the population of non-native Coconut trees and now the group is working to diminish their seedlings to see if they can boost native plants.