IRCEB: Ecological Forecasting and Risk Analysis of Nonindigenous Species

智力上的优点。非本土物种--从其他地方引进的物种--的数量在全球范围内迅速增加。它们是生物多样性丧失和环境变化的主要原因，估计每年造成1370亿美元的损失。2001年《国家入侵物种管理计划》(www.invasivSpecies.gov)强调迫切需要对非土著物种建立更严格和全面的风险分析框架，以便能够适当地针对预防和控制战略。主要的公共政策考虑是，社会资源中有多少应该用于应对非本土物种，例如，应该如何在预防和控制之间进行分配？然而，这些考虑包括需要跨学科努力的相互作用的生态和经济因素的联系。物种入侵是由经济活动引起的，反过来又影响经济活动。这种生态和经济的联系和反馈意味着风险评估与风险管理相互作用，这与通常认为风险评估和风险管理是独立的观念相矛盾。社会福利和风险评估都是由生态和经济过程共同决定的。为了响应跨学科风险分析的需要，这个项目汇集了入侵生物学、数学模型和经济学的专家。主要目标是开发和应用非土著物种的生物经济建模框架，该框架集成了风险评估和风险管理，包括不确定性分布，并在景观背景下优化预防和控制策略。整个生物经济模型使用随机动态规划，允许研究人员以这样一种方式纳入生态经济反馈，以优化预防和控制战略的组合，以实现社会福利的最大化。这一框架将通过神经网络模型扩展到景观尺度。应用将集中在大湖地区的淡水非本土物种。例如，一项对斑马贻贝的初步应用表明，社会应该每年花费约24万美元，以防止斑马贻贝通过动力装置入侵每个湖泊(以防止管道被污染)。与此形成鲜明对比的是，2001财年，美国鱼类和野生动物管理局花费了825,000美元，用于预防和控制所有湖泊的所有水生有害生物。我们的分析将与政策制定者和自然资源管理者直接相关。研究人员将与芝加哥的谢德水族馆合作，教育学童和公众了解非土著物种的一般问题，了解个人可以做些什么来减少这个问题，以及科学在公共政策决策中扮演的角色。通过与一家教育软件公司合作，他们将把研究模型转换为用户友好的格式，供学童、公众、政策制定者、资源管理人员和利益相关者使用。与大湖区委员会合作，将在讲习班上向决策者、管理人员和利益攸关方传播研究方法、结果和用户友好型产品。最后，他们将与澳大利亚的顶尖研究人员开展国际合作，相互交流信息和技术，因为澳大利亚的NIS研究比北美更先进。

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.