Removing rats helps native tree seedlings surge on Palmyra Atoll

In 2011, conservation teams set out on one of the biggest rat eradications ever on a tropical atoll, targeting an estimated 30,000 invasive rodents on Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific. The goal was not just to remove a pest, but to restore an entire ecosystem that had been suppressed for more than a century. Five years after the last rat was declared gone, the results were striking: native tree seedlings, once reduced to fewer than 150 across the atoll, surged to more than 7,700, signalling a dramatic rebound of the original forest. As documented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and researchers from UC Santa Cruz, the Palmyra project shows how removing a single invasive species can unlock rapid, large-scale recovery in island ecosystems.