IRCEB: Ecological Forecasting and Risk Analysis of Nonindigenous Species

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Intellectual merit. Numbers of nonindigenous species--species introduced from elsewhere - areincreasing rapidly worldwide. They are a major cause of biodiversity loss and environmentalchange, and are estimated to cost the US $137 billion/yr. The 2001 National Invasive SpeciesManagement Plan (www.invasivespecies.gov) highlighted the urgent need for more rigorous andcomprehensive risk analysis frameworks for nonindigenous species so that prevention andcontrol strategies can be targeted appropriately. The central public policy consideration is howmuch of society's resources should be expended in response to nonindigenous species, and how,for example, should it be allocated between prevention and control? These considerations,though, include a nexus of interacting ecological and economic factors that requireinterdisciplinary effort. Species invasions are caused by economic activities, and in turn affecteconomic activities. This ecological and economic linkage and feedback means that theassessment of risk interacts with the management of risk, which contradicts the common notionthat risk assessment and risk management are independent. Social welfare and risk assessmentare both determined jointly by ecological and economic processes.In response to the need for interdisciplinary risk analysis, this project brings togetherexperts from invasion biology, mathematical modeling, and economics. The main goal is todevelop and apply a bio-economic modeling framework for nonindigenous species thatintegrates risk assessment and risk management, includes uncertainty distributions, andoptimizes prevention and control strategies in a landscape context. The overall bio-economicmodel uses Stochastic Dynamic Programming, which allows the investigators to incorporateecological-economic feedbacks in such a way to optimize combinations of prevention andcontrol strategies to maximize social welfare. This framework will be extended to the landscapescale with Neural Network models.The applications will focus on freshwater nonindigenous species in the Great Lakesregion. A preliminary application to zebra mussels suggested, for example, that society shouldbe spending about $240,000/yr to keep zebra mussels from invading each lake with a powerplant (to prevent fouling of pipes). This is in sharp contrast to the $825,000 that the Fish &Wildlife Service spent in FY2001 for prevention and control efforts for all aquatic nuisancespecies for all lakes. Our analyses will be directly relevant to policymakers and natural resourcemanagers.Broader impacts. The investigators will partner with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago toeducate schoolchildren and the public about the general problem of nonindigenous species, aboutwhat individuals can do to reduce the problem, and about the role that science plays in publicpolicy decisions. By partnering with an educational software firm, they will convert researchmodels into user-friendly formats for use by schoolchildren, the public, policymakers, resourcemanagers, and stakeholders. In partnership with the Great Lakes Commission, research methods,results, and user-friendly products will be disseminated in workshops to policymakers, managers,and stakeholders. Finally, they will develop international collaborations and a reciprocalexchange of information and techniques with top researchers in Australia, where NIS research isadvanced relative to North America.