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Identifying management guidelines to control the invasive House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) within natural protected areas through the estimation of local colonization and extinction probabilities

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Abstract

Invasive species hinder the conservation objectives of natural protected areas, particularly of those found within or nearby urban settlements. Identifying the habitat and landscape traits that determine the establishment and persistence of populations is essential for implementing effective management plans to control invasive species. We employed multi-season occupancy models to identify the habitat and landscape traits that determined the local colonization and extinction probabilities of an invasive bird (House Sparrow—Passer domesticus), in order to provide recommendations for controlling its population within a natural protected area immersed in Mexico City. We selected traits that exhibited management potential to provide feasible recommendations for controlling the species. We observed that increasing values of shrub cover, tree cover, and distance to developed areas discouraged the sparrow from invading new sites of the reserve. Simultaneously, greater distances to developed areas promoted the extinction of the species across invaded sites. These effects might be related to resource availability, foraging preferences of the species, predatory exposure, and competition. Preserving tree and shrub cover as a natural barrier for dissuading species arrival represents a key management objective for its control in the reserve. Greater management efforts must be focused at those sites of the reserve that are closer to developed areas, given that the latter may function as source habitats for the House Sparrow. Our approach for identifying management actions that impact the population dynamics of an invasive species might provide crucial results to control this type of populations. Such a strategy could be replicated for other species and natural protected areas to enhance the conservation value of reserves and provide alternatives when dealing with invasive species.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the support provided by J. Jaime Zúñiga-Vega and Israel Solano-Zavaleta for the development of this work. We thank P. E. Mendoza-Hernández, E. Serrano, F. Sáenz, A. García, Y. Martínez, M. Méndez-Janovitz, M. Suárez-Rodríguez, R. González, P. Garrido, D. Fuentes, M. Aguilar, V. Sandoval, S. Quiroz and H. Rocha for providing field assistance. We also thank L. Zambrano and all the SEREPSA staff that granted us access to the ecological reserve. As part of the Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas of UNAM, GAR-C (440952) and RO-A (327503) received a Ph. D. scholarship from CONACYT. RO-A received the support from the DGAPA-UNAM Postdoctoral Fellowship 2021–2022 during which this article was completed.

Funding

As part of the Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas of UNAM, GAR-C (440952) and RO-A (327503) received a Ph. D. scholarship from CONACYT. RO-A received the support from the DGAPA-UNAM Postdoctoral Fellowship 2021–2022 during which this article was completed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grupo de Ecología Evolutiva y Demografía Animal, Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, Ciudad de México, México

    Gonzalo A. Ramírez-Cruz & Rubén Ortega-Álvarez

  2. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8711, Col. San José de la Huerta, 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, México

    Rubén Ortega-Álvarez

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  1. Gonzalo A. Ramírez-Cruz
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by GAR-C; analyses were performed by RO-A. The first draft of the manuscript was written by both authors. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rubén Ortega-Álvarez.

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Ramírez-Cruz, G.A., Ortega-Álvarez, R. Identifying management guidelines to control the invasive House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) within natural protected areas through the estimation of local colonization and extinction probabilities. Biol Invasions 23, 3767–3776 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-021-02616-2

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