Spatial priorities for invasive alien species control in protected areas.

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Management
• Conservation Biology

Background:

• Limited funding for invasive alien species (IASs) management requires cost-effective strategies.
• Prioritizing IASs control is crucial for efficient resource allocation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply a cost-benefit optimization framework for prioritizing IASs control.
• To integrate spatially explicit costs, benefits, and invasion dynamics into a decision-making tool.

Main Methods:

• Developed a cost-benefit optimization framework for spatially explicit IASs management.
• Utilized a 20-year Geographic Information System panel dataset for invasion dynamics and control costs.
• Employed a field choice experiment to estimate spatially explicit benefits of control.

Main Results:

• The proposed criterion recommends targeted control in heavily invaded, high-value areas, differing from current homogeneous strategies.
• Demonstrated high returns on investment, suggesting increased budgets and more drastic control measures are warranted.
• Identified specific areas for prioritized intervention based on cost-benefit analysis.

Conclusions:

• The developed framework provides an operational criterion for prioritizing IASs control under budget constraints.
• Policy recommendations include increasing allocated budgets and implementing more aggressive control measures.
• Future work involves developing decision-support tools for local managers to set IASs management priorities.