Also in New Zealand, small mammalian predators such as rodents have little direct effect on vegetation but have greater effect on island faunas through extinction and displacement (Wood et al). Pacific rats, for example, were thought to be causing the local extinction of large, nocturnal ground-dwelling lizards, and they were assumed to have minimal effect on diurnal species, those that sleep at night, such as shore skinks (Wood et al). In places where Pacific rats were removed, however, shore skink populations rapidly changed, indicating that the rats’ impact has been underestimated (Wood et al).
