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Individual heterogeneity affects the outcome of small mammal pest eradication

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Abstract

1. The eradication of invasive small mammal pests is a challenging undertaking, but is needed in many areas of the world to preserve biodiversity. Trapping and poisonous baits are some of the most widespread tools for pest control. Most of the models used to make predictions and to design effective trapping protocols assume that pest populations are behaviourally homogeneous and, in particular, that all individuals react the same way when confronted with a trap or bait. In this study, we analyse the effect of consistent variations in trappability across a pest population on the success of eradication and the time taken to be confident that eradication has occurred. 2. We present results obtained using both a simple, stochastic, individual-based model, and an analytical approach. Simulations were run using two different modelling techniques, one where individuals display consistent daily behaviour towards traps and one with variable daily behaviour. We then show how to use our model to detect and measure heterogeneity in a population using capture data. 3. Results show that neglecting individual heterogeneity in trappability leads to overly optimistic predictions for the efficacy of eradications operations. The presence of even a small proportion of relatively trap-shy individuals is shown to make eradication much more difficult 4. In this study we reveal how individual heterogeneity can affect capture probabilities and the outcome of pest eradications. Such information contributes towards improved pest management designs, needed by ecological operations making use of trapping systems.

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Data Availability

The model code used to produce our results is available as supporting material.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury, 8140, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Giorgia Vattiato, Michael J. Plank & Alex James

  2. Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, PO Box 69040, 7640 Lincoln, Auckland, New Zealand

    Giorgia Vattiato & Rachelle N. Binny

  3. Te Pūnaha Matanini, Auckland, New Zealand

    Giorgia Vattiato, Michael J. Plank, Alex James & Rachelle N. Binny

Authors
  1. Giorgia Vattiato
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  2. Michael J. Plank
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  4. Rachelle N. Binny
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Contributions

All authors conceived the ideas and designed methodology; GV produced and analysed the simulation data; GV led the writing of the manuscript; all authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giorgia Vattiato.

Appendix

Appendix

Probability distribution function of distances between trap and home-range centre

We simulate scenarios where a gird of regularly spaced traps (distance between traps d) are placed in a territory with randomly placed animal home-range centre.

The probability distribution function of the distance d between a trap and a randomly placed home-range centre can be found by calculating the PDF f(x) of the distance x from a point to the centre of a dxd square:

$$\begin{aligned} f(x) = {\left\{ \begin{array}{ll} \frac{2\pi x}{d^2}, &{} \text{ if } 0<x\le \frac{d}{2}\\ \frac{4x}{d^2}\left( \frac{\pi }{2}-2\text{ arccos }\left( \frac{d}{2x}\right) \right) , &{} \text{ if } \frac{d}{2}<x\le \frac{d\sqrt{2}}{2}\\ 0, &{} \text{ otherwise } \end{array}\right. } \end{aligned}$$
(11)

Parameter estimates under different modelling scenarios

Table 2 Estimates of the parameter of the \(\beta\)-distribution used to simulate individual heterogeneity in the probability of interaction with a trap \(p_{int}\), for different values of population size N, mean probability of interaction \(\mu\) and standard deviation (measure of heterogeneity) \(\sigma\). These estimates correspond to the mean of 500 simulations, run using a constant probability of encounter \(p_{enc}=0.2\) and under the assumption of known population size N
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Vattiato, G., Plank, M.J., James, A. et al. Individual heterogeneity affects the outcome of small mammal pest eradication. Theor Ecol 14, 219–231 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-020-00491-6

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