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You’ve arrived on Guam, where the introduction of the invasive brown tree snake

ID: 73670 • Letter: Y

Question

You’ve arrived on Guam, where the introduction of the invasive brown tree snake has caused all of the insectivorous birds to go extinct. This has caused an explosion in the spider population, which has in turn caused many of the herbivorous insects to decline, and the plants are no longer producing chemical defenses to the insects. Assuming you could fully remove the brown tree snake What steps would you take to

A) restore the previous climax ecosystem?

B)What consequences might you need to mitigate?

Explanation / Answer

Removing the brown tree snake allows the birds to increase in number, which eventually decrease the number of spiders. As a result, insect population again increases making the plants to produce chemical defenses against insects. Since the ecosystem got disturbed it takes bit longer time to go back to previous climax ecosystem.