CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
US seizes $1 bn in bitcoin connected to Silk Road

Thu, 5 November 2020

The US Justice Department said the bitcoin was hacked by 'Individual X' from Silk Road


The US has seized more than $1 billion worth of bitcoin connected to the Silk Road criminal syndicate, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The funds were taken by law enforcement on Tuesday after being traced to a bitcoin address by an unnamed "Individual X," according to a US Department of Justice press release.

"It was further determined that Individual X had hacked the funds from Silk Road," the DOJ said.

The DOJ said it filed a civil complaint that the funds are subject to forefeiture, adding that it expects to prove the case to the court.

"Silk Road was the most notorious online criminal marketplace of its day," said US Attorney Kelly Anderson of the Northern District of California.

"The successful prosecution of Silk Road's founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar question. Where did the money go? Today's forfeiture complaint answers this open question at least in part. $1 billion of these criminal proceeds are now in the United States' possession."

In 2015, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of masterminding the criminal website Silk Road, which sold $200 million in drugs to customers worldwide.

Ulbricht, who ran Silk Road under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts" and was accused of commissioning five murders at a cost of $650,000, was sentenced to two life sentences for narcotics distribution and criminal enterprise.

Don't become a pilot as there are no jobs just huge debts, says union

Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent
Thu, 5 November 2020,
   

Photograph: Thomas_EyeDesign/Getty Images

The pilots union, Balpa, has warned prospective pilots from starting any training courses, saying they would be left with huge debts and no prospect of employment.

Trainee pilots could end up owing more than £100,000 and would not find a job to pay back loans, the union said.

About 200 trainee pilots in UK flight schools who were set for jobs with easyJet have already had their conditional offers of employment withdrawn, after the airline looked to cut hundreds of pilot jobs in the summer as the effects of Covid-19 battered the industry.

Balpa said it was an extraordinary step for them to issue the warning, but it would be irresponsible not to act.

Wendy Pursey, its head of membership and careers, said there were about 10,000 unemployed commercial pilots across Europe, including 1,600 in the UK, while many others were working part-time or on reduced pay. The easyJet trainees now had “no clear route to even a licence, far less a job”, she said.

Others attempting to enter the aviation industry have been hard hit, including 122 trainee air traffic controllers at Nats being laid off before gaining a licence.

The difficulties were underlined by British Airways telling staff on Thursday that many more of them would be placed on furlough, as the airline scales back flights through November. Its few remaining long-haul services from Gatwick will be suspended.

Under the lockdown rules that came into effect on Thursday, all holiday or leisure travel is banned with fines for breaches starting at £200.

A BA spokeswoman said the airline had been “urgently reviewing” its schedule but would be operating flights to “bring home thousands of customers currently abroad, and ensuring people who are permitted to travel in and out of the UK can continue to do so.”

The industry body Airlines UK said the extension of the furlough scheme, which announced on Thursday, was welcome but warned that carriers would “urgently need access to further liquidity measures to shore up their balance sheets”, with more flights grounded. EasyJet confirmed it had had talks with the German government about available support measures, but denied it had made a formal request for funds.

Bombardier CEO expects layoffs, capacity cuts after earnings miss

Allison Lampert and Sanjana Shivdas
Thu, 5 November 2020

FILE PHOTO: 

Bombardier's logo is seen on the building of the company's service centre at Biggin Hill


By Allison Lampert and Sanjana Shivdas

(Reuters) - Bombardier's <BBDb.TO> chief executive on Thursday said he expects layoffs as part of broader plans to cut excess capacity, after the plane-and-train maker missed on quarterly operating profits earlier in the day due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Bombardier is working on plans to cut costs and capacity as the company sheds assets, including its rail division to French train maker Alstom SA <ALSO.PA>, to become a pure-play business jet maker.

"In the weeks to come we will decide all the initiatives we need to do to reduce our cost base," Martel told reporters.

"It's sure there will be layoffs that will come with this."

Martel also said the company is cooperating with an investigation opened by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office in connection with a near decade-old sale of aircraft to Indonesian carrier Garuda.

Bombardier said deliveries of its Global 7500, which lists for around $73 million (£56 million) each, would rise to 12 jets during the last three months of 2020, up from eight during the third quarter.

Bombardier said free cash flow usage was $706 million during the quarter, and it aims to break even during the second half of 2020.

While corporate aircraft deliveries are expected to decline industry-wide by 30% in 2020 due to the pandemic, plane makers see revived activity, including a rebound in private flights.

Martel sees improved order activity for Bombardier's mid-sized Challenger business aircraft, although pricing on large cabin jets "is actually a little bit lower this year" because plane makers had surplus inventory when the pandemic hit.

Corporate jet deliveries fell to 24 units in the quarter from 31 a year earlier. But revenue from business aircraft rose about 10% since higher-priced Global 7500s made up a third of deliveries.

Bombardier's margins and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) took a hit on higher initial production costs for the Global 7500 jets and lower deliveries.

Bombardier reported adjusted EBITDA of $176 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $255 million a year earlier.

Analysts on average were expecting EBITDA to be $179.8 million, according to Refinitiv data.

Bombardier stock was flat in afternoon trading.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni, Anil D'Silva and Jonathan Oatis)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Canada's Bombardier faces UK bribery probe; shares fall

By Kirstin Ridley, Allison Lamper

(Reuters) - The UK Serious Fraud Office announced on Thursday it was investigating Canadian industrial group Bombardier BBDb.TO over suspected bribery in airplane sales to Garuda Indonesia GIAA.JK, widening a global anti-corruption drive in aerospace.



FILE PHOTO: Logo of Bombardier is seen at an office building in Zurich, Switzerland February 28, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

The plane and train maker is the latest aerospace group to face scrutiny over the use of middlemen after authorities struck a record bribery settlement with Europe's Airbus in January and a 2017 plea deal with British engine maker Rolls-Royce RR.L

Both settlements involved sales of planes or engines to Garuda and airlines in other countries.

“The SFO is investigating Bombardier Inc over suspected bribery and corruption in relation to contracts and/or orders from Garuda Indonesia,” the agency said on Thursday.

“As this is a live investigation, the SFO can provide no further comment,” it added.

Garuda did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Montreal, Bombardier said it had been informed about the SFO probe several weeks ago and would cooperate. It has appointed external lawyers to run an internal review.

Shares in the company, which also reported results on Thursday, fell more than 3% after the SFO’s announcement. In afternoon trade they were down about 1.7%..

At the centre of the case, Bombardier said, are five procurement processes involving different manufacturers, including the 2011-2012 acquisition and lease of Bombardier CRJ1000 regional aircraft by Garuda.

Bombardier, which has undergone several changes of leadership after costly industrial bets in the past decade, said the SFO was investigating the same transactions that led to the former CEO of Garuda Indonesia being convicted in May.

An Indonesian court in May handed Emirsyah Satar, Garuda chief executive from 2005 to 2014, an eight-year jail sentence for bribery and money-laundering related to procurement of planes and engines from Airbus AIR.PA and Rolls-Royce RR.L.

In 2017, Rolls-Royce agreed to pay more than $800 million to defer charges after an investigation by the SFO and U.S. Justice Department into alleged bribery of officials in six countries.

Airbus in February agreed to pay a record $4 billion in fines after reaching a plea bargain with prosecutors in Britain, France and United States over alleged bribery and corruption stretching back at least 15 years.

SFO APPROACHED BOMBARDIER

Under a system of deferred prosecution agreements available to the SFO, companies may be offered the chance to settle cases with a fine and escape corporate criminal charges by helping to investigate themselves and undergoing radical interal changes.

Bombardier Chief Executive Eric Martel, who started his role in April, told reporters the SFO had reached out to the Canadian company a few weeks ago.

“We were not aware of any issue internally,” he said.

Companies can win credit for bringing potential wrongdoing to the attention of authorities themselves, though Rolls-Royce avoided a larger fine by showing what a judge described as “extraordinary” co-operation after being approached by the SFO.

Airbus has undergone a radical overhaul of its top ranks since reporting itself to the SFO in 2016. The four-year probe however weighed on sales and relationships with airlines and led to in-fighting over who should carry the blame for using agents.

Bombardier has already undergone significant upheaval since 2015 while trying to bring a larger narrowbody jet to market.

It completed an exit from commercial aviation this year by completing the sale of its money-losing regional jet business to Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to focus on more profitable business jets.


Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru, Kirstin Ridley in London, Allison Lampert in Montreal, Tim Hepher in Paris; Writing by KirstinRidley and Tim Hpher; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Gregorio

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Former BHS owner Dominic Chappell jailed for tax evasion
BY THEINDUSTRY.FASHION
-5TH NOVEMBER 2020

Dominic Chappell outside court

Former BHS owner Dominic Chappell has been jailed for evading more than half a million pounds in taxes on income from his £1 deal to buy the failed high street chain.

The 53-year-old’s offending was an “egregious example” of cheating the public revenue, Southwark Crown Court heard, with the businessman spending a fortune on a luxury lifestyle.

He was jailed for six years for evading VAT, corporation tax and income tax owed on his £2.2 million income from the BHS deal.

His lawyers claimed he became, and still is, “utterly broke” because BHS’s hugely underfunded “pension problem exploded” within two weeks of him controversially buying BHS from retail tycoon Sir Philip Green in 2015.

Rejecting his defence team’s suggestion that, had BHS not failed, he would have had the funds to pay his tax liability, a jury found Chappell guilty of dishonesty after deliberations over three days.

He had denied three charges of cheating the public revenue between January 2014 and September 2016, related to his bankrupt finance company Swiss Rock Limited.

Mr Justice Bryan said Chappell had engaged in a “long and consistent course of conduct designed to cheat the revenue” and that his actions “over a substantial period of time is an egregious example of such offending”.

He said Chappell had “cynically allowed Swiss Rock as a limited liability company to go to the wall, like many others before it, in the hope that HMRC would whistle in the wind for the outstanding tax”.

The judge said not paying VAT or corporation tax, taking receipts out of the company and then putting it into liquidation was “one of the oldest tricks in the book”.

The judge gave the total figure lost to HMRC in unpaid taxes as £583,739.20, and told Chappell his crimes were so serious that “only an immediate custodial sentence is appropriate”.

Chappell, wearing a light-coloured shirt, blue suit jacket, jeans and blue, white and orange trainers stood as he was sentenced and had no reaction as he was led, carrying a holdall, from the dock by a prison officer.

The businessman, of Blandford Forum, Dorset, had claimed to be “simply too busy” to sort out his business dealings properly and said he was “let down by others”.

But the judge said: “You were not overwhelmed by your other pressures, and you were not too busy or under too much pressure to spare the time to buy yourself trappings of luxury with monies that would have been better deployed to pay the taxes due.”

He added: “You did not pay your tax. Instead you holidayed in the Bahamas over the Christmas period on a yacht that was purchased in your name.”

The court heard that in an email at that time, Chappell had said: “I am having to slum it in the Bahamas for the next three weeks. I know you will all feel my pain.”

The judge said on his return from the holiday, and a day after income tax should have been paid, Chappell had bought a £91,000 Bentley Continental as well as a pair of Beretta guns for £11,000. He later bought a £33,000 Land Rover.

BHS was losing £1 million a week and had a £250m-£500m pension deficit when Chappell’s consortium bought it in 2015.

It limped on before collapsing and causing the loss of 11,000 jobs in April 2016.



With the benefit of hindsight, Chappell told the jury the BHS deal was “a life-changing catastrophe” and he should “never have touched it with a barge pole”.

He added: “This catastrophe has cost me my marriage, my money and my reputation.”

During his evidence, Chappell repeatedly said he is “not an accountant” and was relying on the advice of his professional financial experts to deal with the situation as he was “firefighting” the pending collapse of BHS.

Chappell claimed that BHS was forced into liquidation because of the actions of Sir Philip in reneging on promises of financial support for the pension fund and going back on a promise to provide working capital to BHS after the sale.

But the judge told him despite being left “penniless and owing millions to The Pension Regulator” Chappell could not “lay all the blame for that at the door of others including Sir Philip Green”.

He said: “It is you, not anyone else, who has ruined your reputation by your offending, however much the actions of others may have damaged you financially.”

Following the verdict, Andrew Fox, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Using evidence gathered by HMRC we were able to show the jury that Chappell simply chose not to pay large amounts of tax which were due and, as a result, they were sure that he had acted dishonestly.”

Simon York, director of the fraud investigation service at HMRC, said: “This was deliberate theft from UK citizens.

“Chappell was a high-profile businessman who knew tax had to be paid on his income and profits but chose not to do so.

“That’s money that should have been supporting our vital public services instead of funding his lavish lifestyle.”

In November 2019 Chappell was banned from running a company for 10 years, with the Government’s Insolvency Service saying he had carried out “reckless financial transactions” and “failed to maintain adequate company records”.

And in January this year he was ordered by The Pensions Regulator to pay £9.5 million into BHS’s pension schemes.

Reporting: PA 

Ancient burial hints that prehistoric women may have hunted as much as men
PTI

LOS ANGELES, NOVEMBER 05, 2020




Illustration of female hunter depicting hunters who may have appeared in the Andes 9,000 years ago. | Photo Credit: Matthew Verdolivo/UC Davis IET Academic Technology Services


Scientists have unearthed a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America which counters the long-held belief that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered.

“An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held ‘man-the-hunter’ hypothesis,” said Randy Haas, lead author of the study from the University of California (UC), Davis in the U.S.


The researchers believe the findings, published in the journal Science Advances, are particularly timely in light of contemporary conversations surrounding gendered labour practices and inequality.

Sexual division of labour

“Labour practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow ‘natural’,” Haas said. “But it’s now clear that sexual division of labour was fundamentally different — likely more equitable — in our species’ deep hunter-gatherer past.”

In 2018, during archaeological excavations at a high-altitude site called Wilamaya Patjxa in what is now Peru, the researchers found an early burial that contained a hunting toolkit with projectile points and animal-processing tools. They said the objects accompanying people in death tended to be those that accompanied them in life. Based on an analysis of the bones and dental proteins, the study found that the hunter was likely female.


This illustration from the study shows tools recovered from the burial pit floor including projectile points (1 to 7), unmodified flakes (8 to 10), retouched flakes (11 to 13), a possible backed knife (14), thumbnail scrapers (15 and 16), scrapers/choppers (17 to 19), burnishing stones (17, 20, and 21), and red ocher nodules (22 to 24). | Photo Credit: Randy Haas/UC Davis

From further examination of records of ancient burials throughout North and South America, the researchers identified 429 individuals from 107 sites. Of those, they said 27 individuals were associated with big-game hunting tools of whom 11 were female and 15 were male.

The scientists believe this sample is sufficient to “warrant the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely non-trivial”. They also found that somewhere between 30% to 50% of hunters in these populations were female.

According to the researchers, this level of participation stands in stark contrast to recent hunter-gatherers, and even farming and capitalist societies, where hunting is a decidedly male activity with low levels of female participation, “certainly under 30%.”

In future studies, the scientists hope to understand how the consequences of sexual division of labour changed in different times and places among the hunter-gatherer populations of the continent.

 

Tel Aviv University says 'environmentally-friendly' tableware harms marine animals

Research also reveals that bioplastics do not degrade rapidly in a marine environment

AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A new Tel Aviv University study compares the effects of two types of disposable dishes on the marine environment -- regular plastic disposable dishes and more expensive bioplastic disposable dishes certified by various international organizations -- and determines that the bioplastic dishes had a similar effect on marine animals as regular plastic dishes. Moreover, the study finds that bioplastic does not degrade rapidly in the marine environment.

The research was led by research student Guillermo Anderson and Prof. Noa Shenkar of the School of Zoology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Israel National Center for Biodiversity Studies, Tel Aviv University. The study was published online on August 20, 2020, in the journal Environmental Pollution. It will be published in the print version of the journal in January 2021.

"People buy expensive disposable dishes and utensils with the special bioplastic standard seal of compliance on the assumption that they are being environmentally responsible," Prof. Shenkar says. "Our study proves that while this may be good for their conscience, it can still damage the environment."

Environmental pollution caused by plastics in general and at sea in particular is a well-known crisis. According to various assessments, some 350 million tons of plastic goods are produced every single year, half of which is disposable dishes and utensils thrown away after a single use. Plastic is a very durable polymer made of chemicals derived from fossil fuels. Marine animals ingest plastic microparticles containing toxic additives that are integral to these harmful microparticles.

"In recent decades, substances called 'bioplastics' came on the market," Anderson explains. "Bioplastics are made of natural, renewable materials, and biodegrade relatively fast under certain conditions. Disposable dishes and utensils made of bioplastics were granted various international standard seals and are marketed to consumers as environmentally friendly. We wanted to test the supposedly environmentally friendly disposable dishes to see if they do, in fact, meet expectations."

The study compared disposable cups made of regular plastic and bioplastic and their effects on ascidians, a type of a marine invertebrate; examined the extent, if any, to which these marine invertebrates were capable of digesting particles of the regular plastics and bioplastics; then observed the recruitment of marine organisms to the materials.

At least in the short term, both types of plastic have a similar detrimental effect, Prof. Shenkar says. "Bioplastics are made of natural materials and, in that sense, they are more beneficial environmentally speaking. But they may also contain toxins just like regular plastic dishes and they do not biodegrade quickly in the aquatic habitat. In fact, the standard appearing on the label is dated. It doesn't refer at all to different kinds of plastic additives and speaks of biodegrading within 180 days, but that is specifically under conditions available only in industrial composting settings."

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Coronavirus infection odds twice as high among Black, Latinx hospital workers

Support staff in health care settings have higher infection rates than physicians and nurses, Rutgers study finds

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Support staff and Black and Latinx hospital employees with and without patient care responsibilities are at highest risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection in health care settings, a Rutgers study found.

After screening 3,904 employees and clinicians at a New Jersey hospital between late April and late June for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and for lgG-antibodies to the virus, whose presence suggests past recent infection, the study, published in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases, found that these employees are at higher risk than previously thought.

"The risk to workers in health care settings with little or no patient contact has attracted relatively little attention to date, but our results suggest potentially high infection rates in this group," said lead author Emily S. Barrett, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Public Health and a member of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute. "By contrast and to our surprise, physicians, nurses and emergency medical technicians showed much lower infection rates."

Health care workers who live in highly impacted communities may have been susceptible to becoming infected outside of the hospital during the early surge of COVID-19, according to co-lead author Daniel B. Horton, an assistant professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a member of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research.

"In the early phase of the pandemic, support staff in the hospital may also have had less access to personal protective equipment or less enforcement of safety protocols," he said. "Going forward, as cases of COVID-19 in the hospital rise again, protecting these and all hospital workers from infection both in and out of the hospital is critical."

In the hospital-based study, researchers found that 13 participants tested positive for the virus and 374 tested positive for the antibody, which suggests recent past infection -- nearly 10 percent of those studied -- and that Black and Latinx workers had two times the odds of receiving a positive test for the virus or antibody compared to white workers.

Phlebotomists had the highest proportionate rate of positive tests--nearly 1 in 4 tested--followed by those employed in maintenance/housekeeping, dining/food services and interpersonal/support roles. By comparison, positivity rates were lower among doctors (7 percent) and nurses (9 percent).

Regardless of whether the infections originated in the hospital or in the community, Barrett said, the results suggest a need to enact safety protocols for hospital employees to protect the health care workforce from future waves of infection.

"The 40 percent of infected health care workers who reported having had no symptoms of infection could be a potential source of SARS-CoV-2 spread in hospitals even if their infections were initially acquired in the community," she said.

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The study was funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Other Rutgers authors include Jason Roy, Weiyi Xia, Patricia Greenberg, Tracy Andrews, Maria Laura Gennaro, Veenat Parmar, William D. Russell, Nancy Reilly, Priyanka Uprety, John J. Gantner, Lydia Stockman, Stanley Z. Trooskin, Martin J. Blaser, Jeffrey L. Carson and Reynold A. Panettieri Jr.

 

Paper addresses fieldwork safety for minority scientists

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ITHACA, N.Y. - Scientists and graduate students with minority identities who conduct fieldwork report being stalked, followed, sexually assaulted, harassed, threatened, having guns pulled on them and police called on them.

These issues threaten minority-identity researchers' physical health and safety during fieldwork, while also affecting their mental health, productivity and professional development.

A paper on the topic, "Safe fieldwork strategies for at-risk individuals, their supervisors and institutions," was recently published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The article - written by Amelia-Juliette Demery and Monique Pipkin, graduate students in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology - describes how peers, mentors, departments and institutions can all help to address these problems.

"When we solicited input from students in our department, we found that a lot of these personal experiences and the associated proactive measures that they took following those experiences were pretty universal and extended beyond just the color of someone's skin," Demery said.

The paper was originally intended as an internal document for the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, but feedback from department graduate student, postdoctoral and faculty reviewers encouraged Demery and Pipkin to widen the scope to apply more universally inside and outside of academia. The authors queried and received feedback from their department sources, and from sources at diversity and inclusion committees at the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the American Ornithological Society.

"Amelia Demery and Monique Pipkin have done such an important service to outline and explain strategies to keep field researchers safe, particular those who are at risk because of their minority identity," said Jeremy Searle, chair and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "We have to do everything possible to ensure individuals are not hindered from doing field research because of identity prejudice, and this paper is a really important contribution for ensuring that," he said.

In their responses, researchers described feeling threatened based on their race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and/or disability. Such experiences can also occur when American scientists travel internationally.

"Field safety is an issue for everyone," Pipkin said. "There is a lack of general field safety training."

In addition, such experiences take a toll on a scientist's or student's ability to do their work.

"If you have two graduate students, one may not perform as highly as another simply because they can't collect as much data because they are trying to mediate issues of being a woman in the field alone, being a person of color in the field alone, and having to always look over their shoulder," Pipkin said.

"It's an immense emotional and mental strain," Demery said.

These problems can be compounded, she said, by supervisors and advisers of different backgrounds who lack experiences of being 'othered,' and may respond with disbelief and skepticism.

Addressing these problems, Pipkin said, is everyone's responsibility. Individuals should prepare themselves by notifying others where and when they are collecting data, and conduct research with others when possible. Peers may check in on lab mates when they know they are in the field and be prepared to get help in emergencies. And supervisors must educate themselves, understand the specific field risks their students face and prepare their researchers ahead of time.

On department and institutional levels, fieldwork safety presents systemic challenges requiring standardizing safety protocols, Demery said. Such measures can include: developing and mandating field safety, harassment and first aid training; training supervisors; evaluating institutional practices and removing barriers to entry in the sciences; understanding and addressing risks at specific field sites; and hiring diverse faculty.

Demery and Pipkin plan to continue leading discussions across campus, hold workshop seminars and webinars, and design a template for how others can lead conversations on fieldwork safety issues.

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For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

 

Plot twist

Eradicating black rats on Palmyra Atoll uncovers eye-opening indirect effects

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

Research News

 

The black rats weren't supposed to be there, on Palmyra Atoll. Likely arriving at the remote Pacific islet network as stowaways with the U.S. Navy during World War II, the rodents, with no natural predators, simply took over. Omnivorous eating machines, they dined on seabird eggs, native crabs and whatever seed and seedling they could find.

When the atoll's managers -- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and Island Conservation -- were planning to conduct a rat eradication project, UC Santa Barbara community ecologist Hillary Young and her research group saw it as an unusual opportunity. They had already been visiting Palmyra regularly to track another non-native species -- the coconut palm -- to see whether it was spreading invasively in the area, potentially impacting the nesting seabird population and changing the island's soil composition. They had plots where they were monitoring trees in various stages of growth and survival; how would the vegetation respond to the eradication of the island's main seed and seedling eater?

"Prior to the eradication, most of the understory of Palmyra was either bare ground -- sandy soil or coral rubble -- or covered in a carpet of ferns," said Ana Miller-ter Kuile, a graduate student researcher in the Young Group and lead author of a study that appears in the journal Biotropica. The rats were quick to eat seeds and young plants coming out of the ground, and they frequented the canopy as well, often nesting in the coconut palms and eating coconuts.

Eradication of the rats -- which was conducted in 2011 -- did in fact result in a resurgence of vegetation on Palmyra. And not only that. The Asian tiger mosquito was wiped out, while two species of land crab emerged, adding to the atoll's biodiversity.

But rarely is ecology easily untangled. In the years that followed eradication, Palmyra's understory did indeed fill with juvenile trees as seeds that hit the ground were allowed to take root. Only they were often not the Pisonia or other native trees that would have been the more ideal forests for the native seabirds and animals of Palmyra.

"I was on the island in 2012, just after the eradication and could easily navigate through the open jungle understory," Miller-ter Kuile said. "Two years later when I went back, I was wading through an infuriating carpet of seedlings that were taller than me, tripping over piles of coconuts." While the researchers found a 14-fold increase in seedling biomass, most of these new seedlings were juvenile coconut palms, their proliferation left unchecked by the removal of the rats.

"Rats were basically eating almost every nut before it even reached the forest floor," Miller-ter Kuile said. "I knew that rats could have an impact, I just didn't expect it to be this large." In the absence of rats, according to a population model the researchers built based on a decades' worth of data on coconut seed production, growth and survival, the coconut palms' population growth rate increased by 10% -- enough to eventually overtake the island, had the managers not stepped in with an aggressive coconut palm removal project.

The coconut palm invasion is a problem for places like Palmyra Atoll, as it shifts the island's ecology away from native plants and animals.

"Coconuts have a very different 'nutritional' profile from the native tree species on this island, with much more carbon and less nitrogen," Miller-ter Kuile said. "When these trees die, because they have different nutrient profiles from native plants, they are likely to break down differently -- and more slowly -- and influence rates of decomposition." In addition, she said, native seabirds do not nest in coconut palms, which would deprive the atoll of the nutrients in their guano, which, in turn, "would lead to what would likely be a fairly nutrient-poor system, which discourages other native plants from growing in those areas."

Continuing their restoration of the island, Palmyra's managers were working to remove the vast majority of the island's millions of coconut palms to give local species a chance to dominate, a project that is currently on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anticipating the indirect downstream effects, such as potential shifts in ecology toward other invasive species, could become part of a more holistic island rodent eradication effort, Miller-ter Kuile said.

"Wildlife management, in particular, has a history of being single-species focused, which often means that a lot of time and energy is put into producing or controlling a species without considering the broader effects of that management effort on all of the rest of the species in that ecosystem," she said. According to the study, "documenting the variation in invasive rodent diet items, along with long-term surveys, can help prioritize island eradications where restoration is most likely to be successful."

"The 'accidental experiment' of our long-term monitoring of trees in this project I think provides a rare opportunity to quantify the immediate and longer-term effects of eradication," she said.

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