Priority threat management of invasive animals to protect biodiversity under climate change

Abstract

Climate change is a major threat to global biodiversity, and its impacts can act synergistically to heighten the severity of other threats. Most research on projecting species range shifts under climate change has not been translated to informing priority management strategies on the ground. We develop a prioritization framework to assess strategies for managing threats to biodiversity under climate change and apply it to the management of invasive animal species across one-sixth of the Australian continent, the Lake Eyre Basin. We collected information from key stakeholders and experts on the impacts of invasive animals on 148 of the region's most threatened species and 11 potential strategies. Assisted by models of current distributions of threatened species and their projected distributions, experts estimated the cost, feasibility, and potential benefits of each strategy for improving the persistence of threatened species with and without climate change. We discover that the relative cost-effectiveness of invasive animal control strategies is robust to climate change, with the management of feral pigs being the highest priority for conserving threatened species overall. Complementary sets of strategies to protect as many threatened species as possible under limited budgets change when climate change is considered, with additional strategies required to avoid impending extinctions from the region. Overall, we find that the ranking of strategies by cost-effectiveness was relatively unaffected by including climate change into decision-making, even though the benefits of the strategies were lower. Future climate conditions and impacts on range shifts become most important to consider when designing comprehensive management plans for the control of invasive animals under limited budgets to maximize the number of threatened species that can be protected.

Beyond the model: expert knowledge improves predictions of species’ fates under climate change

“…, Firn et al. ), these require having a sufficient number of experts on these very restricted species that occur in a remote and unpopulated part of Australia. We recommend further studies endeavor to use the structured elicitation process wherever possible, and use the standard methods to quantify the uncertainty across experts.…”

“…Therefore, discussion among experts was helpful to elucidate the interactions between the nuance of the landscape and the likely species' responses. While structured elicitation processes have been shown to be extremely useful (Martin et al 2012, Firn et al 2015, these require having a sufficient number of experts on these very restricted species that occur in a remote and unpopulated part of Australia. We recommend further studies endeavor to use the structured elicitation process wherever possible, and use the standard methods to quantify the uncertainty across experts.…”

“…Expert knowledge to inform understanding and to guide management is increasingly used where decisions need to be made but empirical data are insufficient (Martin et al 2012). Expert knowledge is particularly useful for predicting the impact of climate change and prioritizing management actions (Foden et al 2013, Firn et al 2015, Javeline et al 2015. Methods have been developed to minimize bias and uncertainty inherent in expert knowledge, and to account for wide variances in knowledge (Martin et al 2012).…”

Evaluating community‐level response to management actions across a diverse Hawaiian forest bird community

“…, Firn et al. ). Further insights may be obtained using empirical models of population dynamics, such as using several different metrics based on species richness and composition to compare management scenarios (White et al.…”

Challenges of Participatory Community Monitoring of Biodiversity in Protected Areas in Brazilian Amazon

“…These programs are part of an increasing effort on the part of many countries that have begun to adopt actions to monitor the "tendencies of their biodiversity" [2] (p. 3) with the aim of minimizing human impacts on threatened biodiversity, which has been a major global issue over the past few decades [4].…”