Space matters when defining effective management for invasive plants

Aim Invasive alien species are a threat to biodiversity and can harm resident plants, animals, humans and infrastructure. To reduce deleterious effects, effective management planning for invasive plants is required. Currently, the effectiveness of management is primarily optimized locally through eradication of individual populations. By contrast, spatial prioritization of control activities at the landscape level has received less attention, despite its potential to improve management planning in complex landscapes, especially under budget constraints. Location North-eastern Switzerland, Europe. Methods We used a dynamic simulation model to evaluate the effectiveness of spatially designed management planning for controlling the expansion of three invasive alien plants (IAPs; Heracleum mantegazzianum, Impatiens glandulifera and Reynoutria japonica) across a heterogeneous landscape in North-eastern Switzerland. The model predicted the spread of IAPs from their current distribution under constraints of 361 control options differing in local intensity, frequency, duration, area and spatial prioritization of eradication measures. Results Our results demonstrate that IAP-control actions under a restricted budget are more effective if control actions are spatially prioritized. Most effective spatial treatments generally prioritized small populations in the case of the annual species and large populations in the case of the perennial species. Further, applying intensive control at early stages generally increased effectiveness of control. Main conclusions For IAP-management planning, our findings suggest that control should be applied early when IAPs start spreading, to maximize success or minimize costs. Further, spatial prioritization schemes are particularly useful under limited financial means for IAP-management. Finally, our modelling approach may serve as a proof of concept to evaluate the effectiveness of control actions of various IAPs in complex landscapes.

[1]  Peter W J Baxter,et al.  Optimal eradication: when to stop looking for an invasive plant. , 2006, Ecology letters.

[2]  Dirk R. Schmatz,et al.  Climate, competition and connectivity affect future migration and ranges of European trees , 2012 .

[3]  Cindy E. Hauser,et al.  Optimizing invasive species control across space: willow invasion management in the Australian Alps , 2011 .

[4]  Alan Hastings,et al.  Cost-effective management of invasive species using linear-quadratic control , 2010 .

[5]  R. A. Masters,et al.  Principles and practices for managing rangeland invasive plants. , 2001 .

[6]  L. Stadler,et al.  Integrating species distribution models and interacting particle systems to predict the spread of an invasive alien plant , 2010 .

[7]  M. Vilà,et al.  Ecological impacts of invasive alien plants: a meta-analysis of their effects on species, communities and ecosystems. , 2011, Ecology letters.

[8]  Clifford E. Kraft,et al.  PREDICTION OF LONG‐DISTANCE DISPERSAL USING GRAVITY MODELS: ZEBRA MUSSEL INVASION OF INLAND LAKES , 2001 .

[9]  David R. Anderson,et al.  Model selection and multimodel inference : a practical information-theoretic approach , 2003 .

[10]  S. Ustin,et al.  The effects of temporally variable dispersal and landscape structure on invasive species spread. , 2010, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[11]  F. I. Woodward,et al.  Can landscape‐scale characteristics be used to predict plant invasions along rivers? , 2002 .

[12]  Michael Leitner,et al.  Spread of invasive ragweed: climate change, management and how to reduce allergy costs. , 2013 .

[13]  J. L. Parra,et al.  Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas , 2005 .

[14]  Antoine Guisan,et al.  Climatic Niche Shifts Are Rare Among Terrestrial Plant Invaders , 2012, Science.

[15]  Philip E. Hulme,et al.  Biological invasions: winning the science battles but losing the conservation war? , 2003, Oryx.

[16]  P. Hulme.  Beyond control : wider implications for the management of biological invasions , 2006 .

[17]  J. Neter,et al.  Applied Linear Regression Models , 1983 .

[18]  P. Legendre,et al.  Partialling out the spatial component of ecological variation , 1992 .

[19]  Cindy E. Hauser,et al.  Streamlining 'search and destroy': cost-effective surveillance for invasive species management. , 2009, Ecology letters.

[20]  D. Beerling,et al.  Impatiens Glandulifera Royle (Impatiens Roylei Walp.) , 1993 .

[21]  Petr Pyšek,et al.  History of the invasion and distribution of Reynoutria taxa in the Czech Republic: a hybrid spreading faster than its parents. , 2004 .

[22]  Kimberly A. With.  The Landscape Ecology of Invasive Spread , 2002 .

[23]  Andrew R. Solow,et al.  The untamed shrew : on the termination of an eradication programme for an introduced species , 2008 .

[24]  Katriona Shea,et al.  Plant spatial arrangement affects projected invasion speeds of two invasive thistles , 2010 .

[25]  R. G. Davies,et al.  Methods to account for spatial autocorrelation in the analysis of species distributional data : a review , 2007 .

[26]  S. Polasky,et al.  Integrating economic costs into conservation planning. , 2006, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[27]  D. Richardson,et al.  Niche‐based modelling as a tool for predicting the risk of alien plant invasions at a global scale , 2005, Global change biology.

[28]  IN REYNOUTRIA,et al.  ESTABLISHMENT AND SURVIVAL OF THREE INVASIVE TAXA OF THE GENUS REYNOUTRIA ( POLYGONACEAE ) IN MESIC MOWN MEADOWS : A FIELD EXPERIMENTAL STUDY , 2007 .

[29]  Petr Pyšek,et al.  Plant invasions and the role of riparian habitats: a comparison of four species alien to central Europe. , 1993 .

[30]  S. Levin,et al.  Mechanistic Analytical Models for Long‐Distance Seed Dispersal by Wind , 2005, The American Naturalist.

[31]  M. Araújo,et al.  Biotic and abiotic variables show little redundancy in explaining tree species distributions , 2010 .

[32]  Tom Celebrezze,et al.  Alien Species and Evolution: The Evolutionary Ecology of Exotic Plants, Animals, Microbes, and Interacting Native Species , 2006 .

[33]  J. Schnase,et al.  Risk Analysis for Biological Hazards: What We Need to Know about Invasive Species , 2006, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[34]  Reuben P. Keller,et al.  Bioeconomics of invasive species : integrating ecology, economics, policy, and management , 2009 .

[35]  Petr Pyšek,et al.  Invasion dynamics of Impatiens glandulifera - a century of spreading reconstructed. , 1995 .

[36]  D. Simberloff,et al.  BIOTIC INVASIONS: CAUSES, EPIDEMIOLOGY, GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES, AND CONTROL , 2000 .

[37]  Andrew M. Liebhold,et al.  Optimal surveillance and eradication of invasive species in heterogeneous landscapes. , 2012, Ecology letters.

[38]  Jana Müllerová,et al.  Comparing the rate of invasion by Heracleum mantegazzianum at continental, regional, and local scales , 2007 .

[39]  Niklaus E. Zimmermann,et al.  Neophyte species richness at the landscape scale under urban sprawl and climate warming , 2009 .

[40]  D Hodrinson.  « Plant dispersal: the role of man » , 1998 .

[41]  Richard Field,et al.  Coefficient shifts in geographical ecology: an empirical evaluation of spatial and non-spatial regression , 2009 .

[42]  David Tilman,et al.  Plant diversity increases resistance to invasion in the absence of covarying extrinsic factors , 2000 .

[43]  R. Richter,et al.  How to account for habitat suitability in weed management programmes? , 2012, Biological Invasions.

[44]  David Besanko,et al.  Economics of Strategy , 1995 .

[45]  D. Maehr,et al.  Alien Species and Evolution: The Evolutionary Ecology of Exotic Plants, Animals, Microbes and Interacting Native Species (review) , 2005 .

[46]  M. Turner,et al.  LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY : The Effect of Pattern on Process 1 , 2002 .

[47]  Mark Shanley,et al.  Economics of strategy. 3rd ed. , 2003 .

[48]  Wilfried Thuiller,et al.  Invasive species distribution models – how violating the equilibrium assumption can create new insights , 2012 .

[49]  Nick M Haddad,et al.  The movement ecology and dynamics of plant communities in fragmented landscapes , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[50]  Steven I. Higgins,et al.  USING A DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE MODEL FOR PLANNING THE MANAGEMENT OF ALIEN PLANT INVASIONS , 2000 .

[51]  Yvonne M. Buckley,et al.  General guidelines for invasive plant management based on comparative demography of invasive and native plant populations , 2008 .

[52]  K. Shea,et al.  Modeling for Management of Invasive Species: Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) in New Zealand1 , 2004 .

[53]  Antoine Guisan,et al.  Predictive habitat distribution models in ecology , 2000 .

[54]  D. Richardson,et al.  Clearing of invasive alien plants under different budget scenarios: using a simulation model to test efficiency , 2010, Biological Invasions.

[55]  Johannes Peterseil,et al.  Niche based distribution modelling of an invasive alien plant: effects of population status, propagule pressure and invasion history , 2009, Biological Invasions.

[56]  Richard N. Mack,et al.  Controlling the spread of plant invasions: The importance of nascent foci. , 1988 .

[57]  Katriona Shea,et al.  Measuring plant dispersal: an introduction to field methods and experimental design , 2006, Plant Ecology.

[58]  P. Driessche,et al.  Dispersal data and the spread of invading organisms. , 1996 .

[59]  Katriona Shea,et al.  Optimal management strategies to control local population growth or population spread may not be the same. , 2010, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[60]  Alan Hastings,et al.  Finding optimal control strategies for invasive species: a density‐structured model for Spartina alterniflora , 2004 .

[61]  David Williams,et al.  Modelling of floating seed dispersal in a fluvial environment , 2009 .

[62]  A. Hastings,et al.  Controlling established invaders: integrating economics and spread dynamics to determine optimal management. , 2010, Ecology letters.

[63]  C. Plutzar,et al.  Extinction debt of high-mountain plants under twenty-first-century climate change , 2012 .

[64]  Curtis H. Flather,et al.  Patchy Reaction‐Diffusion and Population Abundance: The Relative Importance of Habitat Amount and Arrangement , 2002, The American Naturalist.

[65]  Richard A. Wadsworth,et al.  Simulating the spread and management of alien riparian weeds: are they out of control? , 2000 .

[66]  John A. Silander,et al.  Identifying hotspots for plant invasions and forecasting focal points of further spread , 2009 .

[67]  Daniel J. Murphy,et al.  Risk assessment, eradication, and biological control: global efforts to limit Australian acacia invasions , 2011 .