Antipodes Island Sees Ground Beetle Numbers Surge 40-Fold After Mice Eradication

When conservation teams confirmed in 2018 that invasive house mice had been removed from Antipodes Island, it marked the end of one of New Zealand’s most ambitious island restoration efforts. The remote subantarctic island had carried mice for more than a century, and their appetite for insects, seeds, plants and occasionally bird eggs had quietly reshaped the ecosystem. Eight years on, scientists have reported that ground beetle numbers are now about 40 times higher than before the mice were removed, while rove beetles have increased more than twentyfold. The findings, published in Conservation Science and Practice, offer a rare long-term measure of what happens when a relentless predator disappears from a small island ecosystem. They also show that ecological recovery is not always immediate, tidy or predictable, but it can be remarkably powerful when the pressure is finally lifted. Read more details about it here:A remote island under pressureAntipodes Island lies in New Zealand’s subantarctic region, a wild and windswept place valued for its seabird colonies, endemic land birds and distinctive invertebrate life. The main island is home to species found nowhere else, including t...