Landscape Nonindigenous Species Risk Assessment: Asian Oyster and Nun Moth Case Studies

Abstract

The idea that invasive or nonindigenous species produce a societal cost has become a cultural cliché. Despite the high level of societal concern, the risk assessment process has not been widely used to quantify the risks of invasive species.The study of invasive species has been approached largely on a case-by-case basis, and field studies often have been too idiosyncratic to be used to derive general hypothesis of invasive species establishment (Vermeij 1996). Laboratory and garden studies are hampered by problems of scale, replication, and control (Wardle 2001, Doak et al. 1998. Hypothesized mechanisms for invasive species establishment and spread abound and most may be separated into two general categories: (1) attributes of the nonindigenous species and (2) attributes of the community into which the invasive species has arrived. Studies considering the former are typically searches for lists of common traits among the various species of invasive species, and exceptions to these lists are common (Mack et al. 2000).One of the strongest predictors of plant introductions is if the species has established in another location (Kolar and Lodge 2001). In fish invasions of the Great Lakes, the factors that determined establishment were relatively faster growth, toleration of a wider range of temperature and salinity, and a past history of invasiveness (Kolar and Lodge 2002). Quickly spreading fish have the features of slower relative Environmental Risk and Management from a Landscape Perspective, edited by Kapustka and Landis

Evaluating nonindigenous species management in a Bayesian networks derived relative risk framework for Padilla Bay, WA, USA

“…In the early to mid-2000s, the RRM approach was used to create conceptual models to describe pathways of NIS introductions (Landis 2003;Colnar and Landis 2007;Landis et al 2010;Seebach et al 2010). Landis (2003) analyzed general vectors of introduction for many taxa of NIS.…”