Indirect effects of invasive species removal devastate World Heritage Island

By D. Bergstrom, Arko Lucieer, K. Kiefer, J. Wasley, L. Belbin, Tk Pedersen, Steven L. Chown. 2009

419 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Summary 1. Owing to the detrimental impacts of invasive alien species, their control is often a priority for conservation management. Whereas the potential for unforeseen consequences of management is recognized, their associated complexity and costs are less widely appreciated. 2. We demonstrate that theoretically plausible trophic cascades associated with invasive species removal not only take place in reality, but can also result in rapid and drastic landscape-wide changes to ecosystems. 3. Using a combination of population data from of an invasive herbivore, plot-scale vegetation analyses, and satellite imagery, we show how a management intervention to eradicate a mesopredator has inadvertently and rapidly precipitated landscape-wide change on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. This happened despite the eradication being positioned within an integrated pest management framework. Following eradication of cats Felis catus in 2001, rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus numbers increased substantially although a control action was in place ( Myxoma virus), resulting in island-wide ecosystem effects. 4. Synthesis and applications . Our results highlight an important lesson for conservation agencies working to eradicate invasive species globally; that is, risk assessment of management interventions must explicitly consider and plan for their indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs. On Macquarie Island, the cost of further conservation action will exceed AU$24 million.

Subfields: Ecology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/12fb72cc9a25a1ff2d08b21aead6620a74ba8d45

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Citations in the corpus

The spatial structure of Antarctic biodiversity (2014, background): “Where vertebrate populations change in size or location, these result in very rapid changes in the impacted terrestrial ecosystems, whose members are generally unable to tolerate this type of disturbance (R. I. L. Smith 1988, Bergstrom et al. 2009, Favero-Longo et al. 2011).”
Historical legacies accumulate to shape future biodiversity in an era of rapid global change (2015, background): “Such rapid responses are most likely to occur when the responding biodiversity components are still present in the system, and when delaying indirect effects on the response of the focal biodiversity component (e.g. top-down feedbacks, cf. Bergstrom et al., 2009) are of little importance.”
Biology and Impacts of Pacific Island Invasive Species. 7. The Domestic Cat (Felis catus)1 (2012, neutral): “Occasionally the removal of cats may initially have undesirable ecosystem effects, such as increase of rodents or rabbits (e.g., Rayner et al. 2007, Bergstrom et al. 2009), so the order of removal of alien species is important (e.g., Zavaleta et al. 2001).”
Alien species in a warmer world: risks and opportunities. (2009, background): “From this perspective, conservation strategies should also respect and consider dynamic ecological processes to preserve biodiversity [81,82], otherwise well-intentioned control measures against invasion might result in unexpected outcomes [83, 84 ].”
Predator interactions, mesopredator release and biodiversity conservation. (2009, background): “Failure to do so may result in unexpected negative conservation outcomes which may also be extremely costly to fix (see, Bergstrom et al. 2009).”
Hull fouling as an invasion vector: can simple models explain a complex problem? (2011, background): “Between 2007 and 2009, we surveyed the hulls of 20 commercial transoceanic vessels in the Port of Halifax and 20 in Vancouver on the east and west coasts of Canada, respectively.”
Multiple threats, or multiplying the threats? Interactions between invasive predators and other ecological disturbances (2015, background): “Selectively removing predators from invaded ecosystems can have undesirable consequences through the release of their introduced prey (Bergstrom et al., 2009) or other introduced predators (Marlow et al., 2015; Norbury et al., 2013; Rayner et al., 2007).”
Confronting the wicked problem of managing biological invasions (2016, background): “1 Myers et al. 1998; 2 DIISE 2015; 3 Jones et al. 2016; 4 Bergstrom et al. 2009; 5 Cout et al. 2009; 6 Glen et al. 2013.”
Four priority areas to advance invasion science in the face of rapid environmental change (2020, background): “Such interventions should be preceded by a predictive risk assessment of the indirect effects of invader removal (Bergstrom et al. 2009; Caut et al. 2009; Ruscoe et al. 2011; Lindenmayer et al. 2017) and the legacy effects of invasion (Corbin and D’Antonio 2012; Grove et al. 2015; Reynolds et al.…”
Taxonomic homogenization and differentiation across Southern Ocean Islands differ among insects and vascular plants (2010, background): “…a relatively small, and taxonomically variable, proportion of these introduced species become invasive (Williamson & Fitter, 1996; Jeschke & Strayer, 2005, 2008), they have nonetheless substantially affected species and ecosystems (Mack et al., 2000; Blackburn et al., 2004; Bergstrom et al., 2009).”
When does invasive species removal lead to ecological recovery? Implications for management success (2018, background): “…important native species (Zarnetske et al. 2010; Buckley and Han 2014), or if their removal causes the release of other more damaging invasive species (‘‘surprise or secondary effects’’) (sensu Zavaleta et al. 2001; e.g., Courchamp et al. 2003; Bergstrom et al. 2009; Plentovich et al. 2009).”
Stop Jumping the Gun: A Call for Evidence‐Based Invasive Predator Management (2017, background): “Multispecies approaches can help prevent damaging trophic cascades that have occurred where single introduced species have been controlled without sufficient consideration of changes to species interactions (Bergstrom et al. 2009; Ruscoe et al. 2011).”
Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss (2016, background): “Thus, it is essential that eradications adopt a whole-ecosystem approach to avoid the ecological release of undesirable species (5, 34).”
Intraguild predation and mesopredator release effect on long-lived prey (2009, background): “Severe alteration of community dynamics, such as removng top predators (Bergstrom et al., 2009) or herbivores (Palmer et l.”
The Rise of the Mesopredator (2009, background): “Likewise, feral cats (Felis catus) function as mesopredators in many continental ecosystems (Crooks and Soulé 1999) and as apex predators on many islands (Rayner et al. 2007, Bergstrom et al. 2009).”
Barriers to globally invasive species are weakening across the Antarctic (2017, background): “Eradication attempts are, however, costly and, while often successful, may have unexpected effects on local systems (Bergstrom et al., 2009; Hughes, Pertierra, Molina- Montenegro, & Convey, 2015).”
Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity in a changing world (2011, background): “Deliberate and accidental introductions of grazing and predatory vertebrates have led to the most visible and drastic impacts on native sub-Antarctic ecosystems, although a range of less obvious—to the non-specialist— plants and invertebrates have led to similarly significant impacts within the stru”