“The Wilkins’ bunting lives on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha group; the world’s most remote inhabited archipelago. It eats the fruit of the Phylica arborea, the island’s only native tree.

But around 2011, scientists began to notice signs of an unwelcome visitor. An invasive, sap-sucking scale insect had been, it seems, accidentally introduced on to the island by humans. These insects secrete honeydew, which encourages the growth of a sooty mould that weakens and eventually kills Phylica arborea. Their arrival threatened to destroy the forest, and the tiny bird population among with it…

The RSPB, Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International, Food and Environment Research Agency and Tristan da Cunha Government hatched an unorthodox plan to save the buntings, releasing a small parasitoid wasp called Microterys nietneri, which prevents the scale insects from breeding…

Scientists believe that the wasps have helped save the birds from extinction. Surveys in February this year showed that despite losing approximately 80% of the forest, there are still an estimated 60-90 pairs of Wilkins’ bunting on Nightingale. Although the population has reduced, the forest has recovered in the short period since the wasps were released, and the scientists think numbers of buntings should stabilise and will have a chance to recover over the next few years.”

From The Guardian.