More than an invasive ecosystem engineer: Reconceptualizing biological invasions as socio-ecological phenomenon with the case of North American beaver research and management in Tierra del Fuego

CHRISTOPHER B. ANDERSON

Baltimore

Congreso; 100 Meeting of the Ecological Society of America; 2015

Invasion biology has historically overlooked the phenomenon?s social dimensions. More generally, ecologists increasingly recognize that global ecological change not only has human drivers, but also social outcomes and reciprocal interactions. This modified understanding of human-nature relationships pushes the field of ecology to engage interdisciplinary approaches to research and decision-making. Here, we studied the case of the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) introduced to Tierra del Fuego (TDF) in 1946. This species is an exemplar invasive ecosystem engineer. However, not only has it caused the largest alteration to southern Patagonia's forests in the Holocene, but it also has become part of a complex socio-cultural system and mindsets,including different political structures and histories at multiple scales (local, national, binational, international). Using 15 years of collective work on this topic, we applied the Pulse-Press Dynamics (PPD) model as a heuristic device to analyze invasive beavers from diverse disciplinary lenses (e.g.,anthropology, ecology, geography, history, management, psychology, restoration) and respond to two integrated questions: 1) What is the relationship between how we conceive and study beavers? 2) How does an integrated understanding of beavers as both cause and consequence of ecological and social systems change the way we manage them?