Impacts and management of a complex multi-species invasion

SIMBERLOFF, D.; NUÑEZ, M.; RELVA, M. A.; HORTON, T.; BARRIOS GARCIA MOAR, M. N.

Lexington

Congreso; Joint Meeting of the 2nd Kentucky Invasive Species Conference and the 13th Annual Southeast Exotic Pest Plant Council Conference; 2011

UK Invasive Species Working Group

Impacts and management of a complex multi-species invasion Ecological impacts of invasive introduced species are diverse, idiosyncratic, and often devastating to entire ecosystems. However, only a small fraction of introduced species wreak havoc – most are innocuous. And some introduced species cause disaster in certain places, yet are harmless in others. The difficulty of predicting impacts of some introduced species suggests that close study of the details of introductions will sometimes be needed to understand their trajectories and to implement effective management. To this end, introductions over the last century to a pristine, forested Patagonian island in an Andean lake – of tree species, shrubs, deer, boar, fungi, and insects – have been studied to understand how these species interact with one another and with native species so that some of the newcomers have become highly invasive, others have not, and some that have not yet spread threaten to do so in the near future. Stemming this multi-species invasion is possible, but past sporadic, uncoordinated efforts have been ineffective and in some instances have likely exacerbated the invasion. Failure to respond rapidly to invasions has repeatedly plagued the Argentina National Parks Administration project to restore this island to its state 100 years ago. Additionally, the schizophrenic goal of managing populations at low enough levels that they do not damage native ecosystems yet keeping them extant for harvest purposes has proven to necessitate an extremely delicate balancing act that has yet to be achieved.