Brown Tree Snake Alters Guam Ecosystem

Now that the introduced brown tree snake has “caused the extinction of nearly every [i.e., 10 of 12] native bird species on the Pacific Island of Guam,” what do the snakes—with a density “estimated at more than 3,000 per square mile”—eat? Whatever the answer to that question might be, there is no doubt that they have had a profound and irreversible impact on the ecosystem. As described here, that impact extends to the composition and physiognomy of the native forest, to wit:

But the biggest indirect impact, she [i.e., Haldre Rogers, a University of Washington graduate student in biology] said, could be altered seed scattering that in turn might, in the near future, transform the remaining forest from a diverse mixture of tree species to clumps of trees of the same species, separated by open space. That could have serious consequences, including extinction, for plant and animal species that still live in the forest.