Survival of an Extinct in the Wild skink from Christmas Island is reduced by an invasive centipede: implications for fut
- PDF / 2,831,494 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 56 Downloads / 140 Views
(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)
ORIGINAL PAPER
Survival of an Extinct in the Wild skink from Christmas Island is reduced by an invasive centipede: implications for future reintroductions Jon-Paul Emery
. Leonie E. Valentine
. Yvette Hitchen . Nicola Mitchell
Received: 25 February 2020 / Accepted: 8 October 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The blue-tailed skink (Cryptoblepharus egeriae) is endemic to Christmas Island but underwent rapid population declines in the 1990s and 2000s and was listed as Extinct in the Wild in 2017. As invasive giant centipedes (Scolependra subspinipes) were implicated as a cause of a failed reintroduction of captive bred skinks into a fenced enclosure, we undertook a mesocosm experiment to investigate if skink survival and body condition was negatively affected by the presence and density of S. subspinipes. In addition, we used DNA barcoding to determine if wild centipedes consume other reptile species on Christmas Island. In the mesocosm experiments, survival of skinks was reduced by 30% and 44% at low and high centipede densities respectively over 12 weeks, and skink body condition also declined significantly over this period. DNA barcoding confirmed that skinks that were lost during the mesocosm
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02386-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J.-P. Emery (&) L. E. Valentine Y. Hitchen N. Mitchell School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia e-mail: [email protected] Y. Hitchen Helix Molecular Solutions, PO Box 155, Leederville, WA 6903, Australia
experiment had been consumed by centipedes. Further, we detected DNA of two invasive reptiles (the common wolf snake Lycodon capucinus and the Asian House gecko Hemidactylus frenatus) in the stomachs of wild-caught centipedes, suggesting that centipedes are a generalist predator of reptiles in this island ecosystem. Based on these results, we recommend that attempts to reintroduce C. egeriae to Christmas Island should include the control of centipedes to increase the likelihood of success. Keywords Christmas Island Blue-tailed skink Scolependra subspinipes Survival Invasive species Mesocosm
Introduction Invasion of exotic species into naive ecosystems is one of the most important drivers of biodiversity loss (Vitousek et al. 1997; Courchamp et al. 2003; Sax and Gaines 2008; Carthey and Banks 2014). Damaging impacts of exotic fauna on native fauna include direct effects such as predation, and indirect ecological consequences such as competition for food and refuges. Island species are particularly vulnerable to the pressures exerted by exotic fauna (Reaser et al. 2007; Medina et al. 2011; Simberloff et al. 2013; Doherty et al. 2016), as by-products of their
123
J.-P. Emery et al.
evolutionary isolation, such as simplified food webs, limited competition, and ecological naivete can res
Data Loading...
