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Mouse predation on Laysan albatross

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

Invasive rodents on islands have adverse impacts on native birds in island ecosystems, and rats are the most common culprits. Recently, house mice (Mus musculus) in the South Atlantic were found preying on three species of albatross chicks. Here, we show that house mice can also prey on nesting adult Laysan albatross (Phoebastrea immutabilis) on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (USA). In contrast to mouse attacks on albatross in the South Atlantic where mice targeted the rump and crown of chicks, on Midway, mice targeted nesting adults mainly on the back. For both regions, the outcome was similar with reduced nesting success. In the case of Midway, reduced nesting success was due to nest abandonment or mortality of one or both parents due to secondary bacterial infections. Mortality of adult albatross has the potential to have a more potent demographic impact due to their much higher natural survivorship once they reach adulthood. We discuss possible reasons why mice preyed on live albatross. Pursuant to these findings, efforts are currently under way to eradicate mice on Midway Atoll.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/1e37c8d4f53de42da3005cbaee541afd
Identifier USGS:5ed9223082ce7e579c673ab0
Data Last Modified 20210107
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 5ef74b4a-b2b7-441e-b377-71a5d0798ff4
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial 177.3735,28.2072
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 55011f406b4463de90c3bf3ddcf631e04200d6de35ad1b8efef4516911a36029
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial

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