ReviewBioscience2025
Review of evidence that foxes and cats cause extinctions of Australia's endemic mammals.
Review in Bioscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over half of Australia's threatened and extinct endemic mammal species have been attributed to introduced red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and cats (Felis silvestris catus). But this claim has so far been based on expert opinion. We conducted a timeline analysis, systematic review, and meta-analysis to assess whether the attribution of decline and extinction to these predators is based on evidence. Records for 43.6% and 19.6% of populations did not confirm that extinctions occurred after fox and cat arrival, respectively. Most threatened species have been attributed to these predators without supportive population studies with data (76.1% of species attributed to foxes, and 79.7% to cats). The meta-analysis showed a negative correlation between threatened mammal and fox abundance for spatial but not for temporal correlations, and we found no evidence for a correlation with cats. We conclude that the hypothesis that foxes and cats cause extinctions has come to be accepted with little evidence.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.