Habitats that attract invasive species can be turned into 'ecological traps' that wipe out the invaders.

In Australia, invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina; pictured) are devastating native wildlife, and they have proved difficult to eradicate. To survive the dry season, the toads flock to ponds that store water for livestock, and then use these 'invasion hubs' as staging posts to invade more areas during the rains.

Credit: Image Broker/REX

To trap the toads, Mike Letnic at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and his colleagues used fences to exclude them from the ponds in Australia's Northern Territory.

Toads that were attracted to the water but unable to access it died in their hundreds at the fenced sites, and populations remained suppressed a year later. The authors suggest that other species that rely on invasion hubs could be controlled in a similar way.

J. Appl. Ecol. http://doi.org/z8p (2015)