An invasive appetite: Combining molecular and stable isotope analyses to reveal the diet of introduced house mice (Mus musculus) on a small, subtropical island.

Autor: Holthuijzen WA; Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America., Flint EN; Marine National Monuments of the Pacific, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Honolulu, Hawai'i, United States of America., Green SJ; Genomics and Microbiome Core Facility, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America., Plissner JH; Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Waipahu, Hawai'i, United States of America., Simberloff D; Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America., Sweeney D; Institute for Health Research & Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America., Wolf CA; Island Conservation, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America., Jones HP; Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, United States of America.; Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability, and Energy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2023 Oct 19; Vol. 18 (10), pp. e0293092. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Oct 19 (Print Publication: 2023).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293092
Abstrakt: House mice (Mus musculus) pose a conservation threat on islands, where they adversely affect native species' distributions, densities, and persistence. On Sand Island of Kuaihelani, mice recently began to depredate nesting adult mōlī (Laysan Albatross, Phoebastria immutabilis). Efforts are underway to eradicate mice from Sand Island, but knowledge of mouse diet is needed to predict ecosystem response and recovery following mouse removal. We used next-generation sequencing to identify what mice eat on Sand Island, followed by stable isotope analysis to estimate the proportions contributed by taxa to mouse diet. We collected paired fecal and hair samples from 318 mice between April 2018 to May 2019; mice were trapped approximately every eight weeks among four distinct habitat types to provide insight into temporal and spatial variation. Sand Island's mice mainly consume arthropods, with nearly equal (but substantially smaller) contributions of C3 plants, C4 plants, and mōlī. Although seabird tissue is a small portion of mouse diet, mice consume many detrital-feeding arthropods in and around seabird carcasses, such as isopods, flesh flies, ants, and cockroaches. Additionally, most arthropods and plants eaten by mice are non-native. Mouse diet composition differs among habitat types but changes minimally throughout the year, indicating that mice are not necessarily limited by food source availability or accessibility. Eradication of house mice may benefit seabirds on Sand Island (by removing a terrestrial, non-native predator), but it is unclear how arthropod and plant communities may respond and change. Non-native and invasive arthropods and plants previously consumed (and possibly suppressed) by mice may be released post-eradication, which could prevent recovery of native taxa. Comprehensive knowledge of target species' diet is a critical component of eradication planning. Dietary information should be used both to identify and to monitor which taxa may respond most strongly to invasive species removal and to assess if proactive, pre-eradication management activities are warranted.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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