More than US$21 billion is spent annually on biodiversity conservation. Despite their importance for preventing or slowing extinctions and preserving biodiversity, conservation interventions are rarely assessed systematically for their global impact. Islands house a disproportionately higher amount of biodiversity compared with mainlands, much of which is highly threatened with extinction. Indeed, island species make up nearly two-thirds of recent extinctions. Islands therefore are critical targets of conservation. We used an extensive literature and database review paired with expert interviews to estimate the global benefits of an increasingly used conservation action to stem biodiversity loss: eradication of invasive mammals on islands. We found 236 native terrestrial insular faunal species (596 populations) that benefitted through positive demographic and/or distributional responses from 251 eradications of invasive mammals on 181 islands. Seven native species (eight populations) were negatively impacted by invasive mammal eradication. Four threatened species had their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List extinction-risk categories reduced as a direct result of invasive mammal eradication, and no species moved to a higher extinction-risk category. We predict that 107 highly threatened birds, mammals, and reptiles on the IUCN Red List-6% of all these highly threatened species-likely have benefitted from invasive mammal eradications on islands. Because monitoring of eradication outcomes is sporadic and limited, the impacts of global eradications are likely greater than we report here. Our results highlight the importance of invasive mammal eradication on islands for protecting the world's most imperiled fauna.conservation | restoration | invasive species | island | eradication T he rate of global species decline and extinction is rapid and likely to increase (1-4), although at least US$21.5 billion is spent annually worldwide on conservation of biodiversity (5). Improving conservation outcomes has focused largely on highlevel increases in efficiency, including the distribution of funding across countries (5), or on identifying the ecoregions, habitats, and species most in need (6). Although great strides have been made in promoting evidence-based conservation (7), systematic evaluations of the effectiveness of different actions taken to protect biodiversity at the global scale are rare, with the exception of protected areas (8).Islands occupy ∼5.5% of the terrestrial surface area but contain more than 15% of terrestrial species (9), 61% of all recently extinct species, and 37% of all critically endangered species on the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List (10). Invasive nonnative mammals (hereafter, "invasive mammals") are the main cause of animal extinctions on islands and are one of the most important threats to remaining insular biodiversity (10-12). Eradicating invasive mammals from islands is an increasingly common conservation tool and has been ...

Three endemic vulture species Gyps bengalensis , Gyps indicus and Gyps tenuirostris are critically endangered following dramatic declines in South Asia resulting from exposure to diclofenac, a veterinary drug present in the livestock carcasses that they scavenge. Diclofenac is widely used globally and could present a risk to Gyps species from other regions. In this study, we test the toxicity of diclofenac to a Eurasian ( Gyps fulvus ) and an African ( Gyps africanus ) species, neither of which is threatened. A dose of 0.8 mg kg −1 of diclofenac was highly toxic to both species, indicating that they are at least as sensitive to diclofenac as G. bengalensis , for which we estimate an LD 50 of 0.1–0.2 mg kg −1 . We suggest that diclofenac is likely to be toxic to all eight Gyps species, and that G. africanus , which is phylogenetically close to G. bengalensis , would be a suitable surrogate for the safety testing of alternative drugs to diclofenac.

The house mouse, Mus musculus , is one of the most widespread and well-studied invasive mammals on islands. It was thought to pose little risk to seabirds, but video evidence from Gough Island, South Atlantic Ocean shows house mice killing chicks of two IUCN-listed seabird species. Mouse-induced mortality in 2004 was a significant cause of extremely poor breeding success for Tristan albatrosses, Diomedea dabbenena (0.27 fledglings/pair), and Atlantic petrels, Pterodroma incerta (0.33). Population models show that these levels of predation are sufficient to cause population decreases. Unlike many other islands, mice are the only introduced mammals on Gough Island. However, restoration programmes to eradicate rats and other introduced mammals from islands are increasing the number of islands where mice are the sole alien mammals. If these mouse populations are released from the ecological effects of predators and competitors, they too may become predatory on seabird chicks.

ObjectiveControversy surrounds the identity and functionality of rare bone marrow–derived multipotential stromal cells (BM‐MSCs), including their differentiation capabilities, their relationship to pericytes and hematopoiesis‐supporting stromal cells, and the relevance of their culture‐expanded progeny in studies of skeletal biology and development of cell‐based therapies. The aim of this study was to clarify the nature of candidate BM‐MSCs by profiling transcripts that reflect different aspects of their putative functions in vivo.MethodsRare, sorted BM‐derived CD45−/low CD271bright (CD271) cells were analyzed using 96‐gene expression arrays focused on transcripts relevant to mesenchymal‐lineage differentiation (toward bone, cartilage, fat, or muscle), hematopoietic and stromal support, and molecules critical to skeletal homeostasis. These cells were compared to matched CD45+ CD271− hematopoietic‐lineage cells, culture‐expanded MSCs, and skin fibroblasts. When feasible, transcription was validated using flow cytometry.ResultsCD271 cells had a transcriptional profile consistent with the multiple fates of in vivo MSCs, evident from the observed simultaneous expression of osteogenic, adipogenic, pericytic, and hematopoiesis‐supporting genes (e.g., SP7 [osterix], FABP4 [fatty acid binding protein 4], ANGPT1 [angiopoietin 1], and CXCL12 [stromal cell–derived factor 1], respectively). Compared to culture‐expanded MSCs and fibroblasts, CD271 cells exhibited greater transcriptional activity, particularly with respect to Wnt‐related genes (>1,000‐fold increased expression of FRZB [secreted frizzled‐related protein 3] and WIF1 [Wnt inhibitory factor 1]). A number of transcripts were identified as novel markers of MSCs.ConclusionThe native, BM‐derived in vivo MSC population is endowed with a gene signature that is compatible with multiple functions, reflecting the topographic bone niche of these cells, and their signature is significantly different from that of culture‐expanded MSCs. This indicates that studies of the biologic functions of MSCs in musculoskeletal diseases, including osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, should focus on in vivo MSCs, rather than their culture‐adapted progeny.