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Connectivity and invasive species management: towards an integrated landscape approach

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Abstract

Invasive plants and animals are a major cause of global biodiversity loss. Invasive Species Management (ISM) helps conserve localized populations and ecosystems, but rarely have its potential benefits been explored at the landscape scale. We explore how ISM can enhance landscape connectivity, and how its incorporation into conservation planning algorithms could help design optimal reserve networks. Conversely, conservation planning and connectivity modelling can optimize targeting of ISM, achieving benefits for a wider range of taxa and ecological processes, without the need for additional resources. Empirical research must investigate the spatial pattern of benefits from ISM, and when to target priority conservation sites or the areas (matrix) between them. By bolstering populations within—and increasing connectivity between—focal patches, ISM should move beyond conserving individual sites to creating functionally connected networks of conservation areas.

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Acknowledgments

This research was conducted under core funding to the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment’s Science and Innovation Group and contract C09X0909. We thank Q. Paynter and S. Fowler for helpful suggestions, and T. Etherington, P. Hulme and three anonymous referees for constructive comments. Colloquial use of the terms ‘core’ and ‘halo’ effects is common amongst New Zealand conservation managers.

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  1. Landcare Research, PO Box 40, Lincoln, 7640, New Zealand

    Alistair S. Glen, Roger P. Pech & Andrea E. Byrom

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  1. Alistair S. Glen
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Correspondence to Alistair S. Glen.

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Glen, A.S., Pech, R.P. & Byrom, A.E. Connectivity and invasive species management: towards an integrated landscape approach. Biol Invasions 15, 2127–2138 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-013-0439-6

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