Benefits of integrating complementarity into priority threat management

Chadès, Iadine; Nicol, Sam; Leeuwen, Stephen van; Walters, Belinda; Firn, Jennifer; Reeson, Andrew; Martin, Tara G.; Carwardine, Josie

doi:10.1111/cobi.12413

Cited by 77 publications

(136 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Joseph et al, 2009), as prioritizing at the strategy-level allows for more flexible resource allocation across multiple species (described in Game et al, 2013). It also provides a further example of a non-target based conservation prioritization framework, where the objective is to maximize the sum of expected extant years across a group of species, as opposed to maximizing the number of species that meet a specific persistence target (see Di Fonzo et al, 2016 for further examples of this approach, Chadés et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Auerbach et al, 2014;Carwardine et al, 2012), algorithms which iteratively remove low-ranking strategies and update cost-efficiency rankings (e.g. Joseph et al, 2009;Chadés et al, 2015), and spatially explicit systematic conservation planning software that solve integer programming problems (e.g. Marxan and Zonation; Ball et al, 2009;Moilanen, 2007).…”

Section: Parks Vol 231 March 2017mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Resource allocation algorithms that account for these specific issues could be applied in situations where this is the case (e.g. Chadés et al, 2015;Firn et al, 2013).…”

Section: Parks Vol 231 March 2017mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cost-Effective Resource Allocator: A decision support tool for threatened species management

Martina¹,

Nicol²,

Possingham³

et al. 2017

PARKS

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Faced with increasing rates of biodiversity loss and modest conservation budgets, it is essential that natural resource managers allocate their financial resources in a cost-effective manner and provide transparent evidence for extra funding. We developed the 'Cost-Effective Resource Allocator', a Microsoft Excel-based decision support tool to assist natural resource managers and policy makers, to prioritize the set of management strategies that maximize the total number of years that a suite of species is expected to persist given a budget constraint. We describe this tool using a case study of four locally threatened species from the Australian Commonwealth National Park of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. These include: a native fern (Pneumatopteris truncata), the Christmas Island Red Crab (Gecarcoidea natalis), the Golden Bosun (Phaethon lepturus fulvus), and Abbott's Booby (Papasula abbotti). Under a hypothetical budget of 8,826,000 AUD over ten years, in which all species are considered equal, our tool recommends funding: fern propagation and planting, rat control, cat control, and Yellow Crazy Ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) survey and control. We found that the cost-effectiveness rankings of these strategies were sensitive to the importance that assessors' assigned to different species. The 'Cost-Effective Resource Allocator' can accommodate input from up to eight assessors, and analyse a maximum of 50 management strategies for 30 species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Parks Vol 231 March 2017mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cost-Effective Resource Allocator: A decision support tool for threatened species management

Martina¹,

Nicol²,

Possingham³

et al. 2017

PARKS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We considered two management strategies: (1) fire management; and (2) combined feral ungulate and domestic herbivore management. Species persistence under different management strategies available in Chadès et al (2015) and insights from published studies (see Woinarski et al 2010) indicate that threats influence all species negatively, though the degree of impact may be variable. Details on actions constituting each strategy and their associated costs were also obtained from Chadès et al (2015).…”

Section: Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite a growing a number of examples of decision-making in optimal management in the face of multiple threats (e.g. Wilson et al 2007;Evans, Possingham & Wilson 2011;Chadès et al 2015;Tulloch et al 2016a), similar studies for optimal monitoring choices to learn about and manage multiple threats have received relatively little attention.…”

Section: General Introduction Chapter One -General Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective monitoring for biodiversity conservation

Bal¹

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Monitoring of biodiversity is expensive and can detract resources for managing biodiversity. Given limited resources for conservation, it is not only important to assess the choices we make for managing biodiversity but also those for monitoring biodiversity. This entails considering the benefits and costs of alternative monitoring strategies, and selecting the ones that best inform and improve management decisions. However, understanding which aspects of an ecosystem to monitor (e.g. which species, threat, or indicator) to make effective management decisions is a challenging task. This is especially true when we are faced with large uncertainties, such as those regarding the drivers of change when species are impacted by multiple threats. Although optimal monitoring approaches for conservation decision-making under limited resources have gained popularity over the last decade, similar approaches for monitoring and indicator selection to inform the management of multiple threats for biodiversity have received relatively little attention. In this thesis, I contribute to the theory and tools for selecting monitoring strategies and indicators to improve management decisions, with a focus on multi-species, multi-threat systems. The four objectives of my thesis are: (1) to review current approaches for selecting indicator species for biodiversity management; (2) to assess the value of monitoring species for managing multiple threats; (3) to assess the relative influence of uncertainty and expected benefits of management on monitoring decisions for multiple threats; and (4) to develop a simple indicator selection tool based on a return on investment framework for managing multi-species, multi-threat systems.The thesis starts with a systematic review of the conservation literature, in chapter two, to assess the extent to which the selection of indicator species for biodiversity management explicitly considers management objectives and the management outcomes of monitoring. I find that most indicator selection studies focus on improving the monitoring efficiency rather than the management effectiveness, potentially leading to ineffective indicators. Recommendations are provided to improve indicator selection for management decision-making. I also propose a decision framework for selecting indicator species and identify decision-analytic approaches to evaluate alternative monitoring choices that are further developed in the remainder of the thesis.In chapter three, I use value of information analysis to investigate how monitoring alternative species subject to multiple threats improves our ability to inform the management of these threats.iii Specifically, I compare the effectiveness of different monitoring approaches to learn about the threats i.e. monitoring just species and monitoring with experimental manipulation of threats. My results show that monitoring species alone is unlikely to provide useful information for threat management when there is uncertainty about the effect of multiple threats. Instead, an ...

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Evaluating community‐level response to management actions across a diverse Hawaiian forest bird community

Guillaumet

Paxton

2019

Ecological Applications

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Although species‐specific approaches are necessary to understand the dynamics of individual species composing a community, they do not offer a framework for making optimal management decisions at the community level. Here, we present a simple framework for comparing the response of entire communities to multiple management scenarios. Our approach uses a weighted average of standardized species‐specific responses to produce a single integrative measure of the community response and employs mixed‐effect linear models to quantify the increase in the community response due to each management action, or combination of actions. We demonstrate our approach with a simulation study assessing the potential benefits of multiple management actions on the avian community of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Hawaiʻi, which is composed of eight native species with conservation status varying from endangered to least concern. Management actions considered included a reduction of avian malaria transmission risk, reducing rat predation, and increasing forest habitat. We used three different prioritization (weighting) schemes to assess whether the response to management actions differed along a conservation gradient (from endangered to least concern). We also investigated whether future changes in disease distribution as a result of climate change will alter the relationship between management practices and community response. Our community‐level analysis produced three important insights, highlighting the need to consider the response from multiple species to changing threats and management actions. First, increasing the amount of habitat always had the greatest positive impact on the avian community, regardless of the weighting scheme. Second, the community response to management was different under current vs. future conditions, with increased benefit in the future when disease risks were higher. Third, the response to management varied along the conservation gradient. Reducing malaria transmission risk in 2100 had the greatest benefit to endangered species, while increasing forest habitat had the greatest benefit to “least concern” species. However, reducing rat predation appeared to benefit a subset of species based on ecological factors unrelated to rarity, such as nest accessibility. Our approach is widely applicable using experimental, observational, or simulation‐based data, allowing managers to consider the response of all species while weighting their priority levels.

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Benefits of integrating complementarity into priority threat management

Cited by 77 publications

References 33 publications

Cost-Effective Resource Allocator: A decision support tool for threatened species management

Cost-Effective Resource Allocator: A decision support tool for threatened species management

Effective monitoring for biodiversity conservation

Evaluating community‐level response to management actions across a diverse Hawaiian forest bird community

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