Invasive Species (Other Keyword)
1-3 (3 Records)
Archeologists have identified many historic archeological sites by the presence of cultural vegetation. When Euro-Americans claimed homesteads, they often planted exotic vegetation species on their properties, either for beautification of their land or for utilitarian purposes. In the National Park Service (NPS), natural resource programs now consider many of these non-native species to be invasive and have instituted management plans to stop the uncontrolled spread of these plants. The fact...
Genetic insights into commensal small mammal invasions of Madagascar in prehistory (2016)
A number of invasive small mammal species, including various commensal rodents, have achieved significant range expansion as a result of accidental transportation by humans. In the Indian Ocean, this is true of the black rat, Rattus rattus, the house mouse, Mus musculus, and the Asian house shrew, Suncus murinus. The spread of these species across the Indian Ocean appears to have been facilitated by the emergence of trading networks beginning thousands of years ago. We conducted molecular...
The Rat’s-Eye View: Tracing the Impacts of the Human-Introduced Pacific Rat (Rattus exulans) on Mangareva through Stable Isotope Analysis and Zooarchaeology (2015)
Early Polynesian voyagers transported a suite of plant and animal species to each new island they colonized, forming the foundation of the Polynesian subsistence economy and leading to long-lasting transformations of island landscapes. The Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) was nearly ubiquitous on these journeys, perhaps as a potential food source or simply an inadvertent stowaway. With few natural predators, rat populations multiplied quickly after arrival and spread across island landscapes. Their...