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The Azores Archipelago holds the second most important population of Roseate Terns in the North Atlantic. However, the size of the population has been decreasing. In this study, we used remote-sensing cameras and visits to the main colonies of Common Terns Sterna hirundo and Roseate Terns S. dougallii on Terceira Island to identify the causes of breeding failure. Nest depredation by introduced mammals, particularly rats and cats, was the main cause of breeding failure, leading, in some cases, to the complete destruction of the colony. Additional threats included nest disturbance by humans and dogs, which caused the destruction of some nests. Measures aimed at mitigating depredation were tested but in the case of rodents, control plans proved difficult to achieve. This is probably because rodents are widespread in the Azores, they are not limited by food resources, and/or trapping methods are ineffective. ; Control actions were conducted under approval from the Azores Government, Regional Environmental Directorate. Partial funding came from both the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Portuguese Ministério da Educação e Ciência. Specifically, the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013 was granted to the Marine & Environmental Sciences Centre, and postdoctoral grants were awarded to VCN by the Regional Fund for Science and Technology through grant FRCT/M3.1.a/F/072/2016. LLL was supported by a grant from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia-FCT (SFRH/BD/115022/2016). We are grateful to Kirstin Jones for comments and suggestions that improved an earlier version of the manuscript, along with English proofreading. We thank Patricia Pedro, Maria Magalhães, Matt Cormons, Cristina Nava, Lune Fleur, and the nature wardens of the Terceira Natural Park for help with the fieldwork. We are also very grateful to the Director of Terceira Natural Park and the tern colonies' management team, as well as Rita & Alexandre from Octopus for the availability of boat transport to the islet and the ...

In the Azores, as in many other temperate, semi-tropical and tropical islands, historical patterns of habitat loss have typically resulted in lowland clearance, meaning that the last remnants of the pre-human pristine forest that covered the major parts of oceanic islands are in the mountain areas (Gaspar et al. 2011). The communities of these mountain forests are of critical importance for the protection of current island biodiversity since they are home to many Azorean endemic species (Borges et al. 2017, Borges et al. 2018, Malumbres-Olarte et al. 2019) and provide a variety of ecosystem services (e.g. water storage, erosion control, pollination, pest-control, food supply, recreation and tourism), contributing to the local economy and welfare (Fernandez-Palacios et al. 2017). The recent increase in recreational tourist activities in native habitats of the Azores (SREA 2018) raises concerns about the use of trails being a threat to the already imperilled native forest biodiversity. Hiking trails in particular have been found to be promoting the spread of invasive plants (Barros and Pickering 2014), which may cause adverse cascading effects on arthropods. The spider communities of the Azores are exceptionally well known due to ongoing inventorying and monitoring projects carried out since 1999 (Borges et al. 2016, Emerson et al. 2017, Malumbres-Olarte et al. 2019). The protocol used in NETBIOME ISLANDBIODIV and in this project is part of a long term monitoring proposal for oceanic islands (Borges et al. 2018). ; This research was supported by a Ph.D. scholarship from the Azores Governmentto to Rui Carvalho (DRCT M3.1.a/F/135/2015). Data was obtained mostly during the Rui Carvalho DRCT scholarship, but some samples are from a previous project (ERA-Net NetBiome research framework, financed through Portuguese FCT-NETBIOME ISLANDBIODIV grant 0003/2011). Open access was funded by FEDER in 85% and by Azorean Public funds by 15% through Operational Programme Azores 2020, under the project AZORESBIOPORTAL –PORBIOTA (ACORES-01-0145-FEDER-000072). ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion