India, Sept. 24 -- The steamship SS Makambo was grounded on Lord Howe Island, an isolated volcanic formation off the eastern Australian coast, in 1918, allowing black rats to establish on the island. Over the following century, rats were linked to the extinction of five endemic bird taxa and the decline of several invertebrate species and populations. But the full extent of those losses remained difficult to determine because robust biodiversity surveys were conducted only decades after the rodents arrived. A 2026 study in Biological Invasions examines how the island's invertebrate community changed after the rodents were eradicated.

Their approach was straightforward in concept, if not in execution. Scientists from the University of Syd...