Spatial prioritization for widespread invasive species control: Trade‐offs between current impact and future spread

Abstract

Spatially explicit prioritization of invasive species control is a complex issue, requiring consideration of trade‐offs between immediate and future benefits. This study aimed to prioritize management efforts to account for current and future threats from widespread invasions and examine the strength of the trade‐off between these different management goals. As a case study, we identified spatially explicit management priorities for the widespread invasion of introduced willow into riparian and wetland habitats across a 102,145‐km2 region in eastern Australia. In addition to targeting places where willow threatens biodiversity now, a second set of management goals was to limit reinfestation and further spread that could occur via two different mechanisms (downstream and by wind). A model of likely willow distribution across the region was combined with spatial data for biodiversity (native vegetation, threatened species and communities), ecological conditions, management costs, and two potential dispersal layers. We used systematic conservation planning software (Zonation) to prioritize where willow management should be focussed across more than 100,000 catchments for a range of different scenarios that reflected different weights between management goals. For willow invasion, we found that we could prioritize willow management to reduce the future threat of dispersal downstream with little reduction in the protection of biodiversity. However, accounting for future threats from wind dispersal resulted in a stronger trade‐off with protection of threatened biodiversity. The strongest trade‐off was observed when both dispersal mechanisms were considered together. This study shows that considering current and future goals together offers the potential to substantially improve conservation outcomes for invasive species management. Our approach also informs land managers about the relative trade‐offs among different management goals under different control scenarios, helping to make management decisions more transparent. This approach can be used for other widespread invasive species to help improve invasive species management decisions.