New Zealand as a leader in conservation practice and invasion management

Simberloff, Daniel

doi:10.1080/03036758.2019.1652193

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…However, we emphasise that robustness of design precedes or underpins many of the other methodological areas mentioned above. Research on research, as we have undertaken, is necessary (Ioannidis 2018) importance of this issue cannot be overstated: ongoing declines, in some components of biodiversity, despite more than a century of management efforts, suggest that greater and robust knowledge are essential to inform management (e.g., Coomes et al 2003;Peltzer et al 2019;Simberloff 2019;Hulme 2020). Increasingly robust studies will allow us to better understand when, where, and how often the impacts of invasive species will persist or be influenced by management.…”

Section: Concluding Commentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robustness of field studies evaluating biodiversity responses to invasive species management in New Zealand

Allen

Forsyth

MacKenzie

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Benefits of invasive species management for terrestrial biodiversity are widely expected and promoted in New Zealand. Evidence for this is presented in policy and scientific reviews of the literature, but the robustness and repeatability of the underpinning evidence-base remains poorly understood. We evaluated the design of field-based studies assessing biodiversity responses to invasive species management in 155 peer-reviewed articles published across 46 journals from 2010 - 2019. Each study was assessed against nine principles of experimental design, covering robustness of sampling and avoidance of bias. These principles are important in New Zealand to detect treatment effects from environmental variability driven by underlying gradients such as soil fertility, climate and disturbance. Fifty two percent of studies defined a sampling universe and 68% of studies specified the treatment. Whereas, 54%, 74%, and 50% of studies did not utilise replication, representatively sample the universe, or quantify invasive species, respectively. Ninety five percent of studies quantified biodiversity responses, although a high proportion of these did not representatively sample replicates. Initial conditions and accounting for effects of experimental implementation were not utilised in 57% and 84% of studies respectively. No studies avoided observer/analyst bias using blinding methods, despite this being widely adopted in other fields. Ordinal logistic regression showed these principles varied in how robustly they were applied among categories of biodiversity responses and invasive species. Our findings suggest that greater attention to experimental design principles is desirable: supported by researchers, funding agencies, reviewers, and journal editors. Greater resources is not necessarily a solution to these design issues. Undertaking fewer studies, that are individually more expensive because they better adhere to experimental design principles, is one alternative. Our intent in this article is to improve the robustness of future field studies for at least some principles. Robust designs have enduring value, reduce uncertainty and increase our understanding of when, where and how often the impacts of invasive species on biodiversity are indeed reversible.

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Section: Concluding Commentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robustness of field studies evaluating biodiversity responses to invasive species management in New Zealand

Allen

Forsyth

MacKenzie

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Management of non-native invasive species dominates conservation efforts in New Zealand (eg Russell et al 2015;Simberloff 2019). Invasive mammals, birds, invertebrates, and fish prey on native species and disrupt ecological processes and species interactions.…”

Section: Conservation Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate‐change impacts exacerbate conservation threats in island systems: New Zealand as a case study

Macinnis‐Ng

McIntosh

Monks³

et al. 2021

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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A lthough islands cover only ~5% of the global land area, they support ~20% of terrestrial plant and vertebrate species (Courchamp et al. 2014). Insular species are particularly vulnerable to extinction; one-third of critically endangered species and nearly two-thirds of recent extinctions consisted of species endemic to islands (Tershy et al. 2015), and these declines may have impacts on Indigenous peoples (Lyver et al. 2019). Several interacting factors contribute to this vulnerability, including invasions by non-native species and habitat loss (Simberloff et al. 2013). Island ecosystems are particularly susceptible to multiple climate-change factors, including rising sea level and loss of suitable climatic conditions (Courchamp et al. 2014), but conservation and restoration efforts rarely account for such interacting drivers of change (Parmesan et al. 2013). Understanding the effects of climate change on island ecosystems necessitates knowing how climate interacts with other ecologically influential processes (eg habitat loss, land transformation, invasive species). Here, we use the example of New Zealand to highlight interactions between changing climate and other threats to biodiversity, and stress the need to collect and maintain long-term datasets to improve strategies to mitigate climate-change effects. Lessons learned from New Zealand are relevant to islands (and potentially continental systems) elsewhere (Simberloff 2019), particularly with respect to the indirect and interactive effects of climate-change impacts. Although we focus on land-based ecosystems, we note that warming seas and ocean acidification are affecting marine systems in New Zealand's territorial waters, as well as elsewhere. Finally, we emphasize the need to work with Indigenous communities to improve the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation approaches. New Zealand (also known by the Indigenous name Aotearoa) consists of three main islands, along with hundreds of smaller islands in rivers, lakes, and harbors, as well

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“…New Zealand is widely regarded as a country at the forefront of IAS management (Hayden and Whyte 2003, Russell et al 2015, Simberloff 2019. This country was one of the last land masses on Earth to be colonised by humans and, as an isolated archipelago, was, and is, typically vulnerable to the severe impacts of introduced species (Allen & Lee 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…New Zealand has also led the world in pioneering the eradication of IAS -including established mammal species from small islands (Towns et al 2013), incursions of arthropods on the large inhabited islands (Brockerhoff et al 2010) and the eradication of non-native plants (Hulme 2020). One particular feature of New Zealand -the only remote archipelago that is a developed nation independent of any continental authority -positions this country well to be a world leader in IAS management (Simberloff 2019). However, despite its successes and place at the forefront on the global stage, the country still suffers from invasion debts (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we investigated how the currently available reported costs of invasions are characterized across all (a) environments, (b) cost types, (c) economic sectors and (d) taxonomic groupings. We also examined the temporal trends in the costs of both damage to resources and management investment, where we predict an increase in damage costs through time given the ongoing increase in biological invasions worldwide (Seebens et al 2017), but accompanied with a signi cant increase in management costs as a result of New Zealand's broadly proactive approach to managing IAS impacts (Towns et al 2013, Simberloff 2019). We interpret these results within the speci c context of New Zealand, and more broadly to the reported economic costs of invasions in other countries and regions internationally.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Building a synthesis of economic costs of biological invasions in New Zealand

Bodey

Carter

Haubrock

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Biological invasions are a major component of anthropogenic environmental change, incurring substantial economic costs across all sectors of society and ecosystems. However, the economic costs of invasions have been disparately reported, lacking synthesis across taxonomic and sectorial scales. Using the newly compiled InvaCost database, we analyse reported economic damage and management costs incurred by biological invasions in New Zealand — a country renowned for its approaches to invasive species management — from 1968 to 2020. In total, US$69 billion (NZ$97 billion) is currently reported over this ~50 year period, with approximately US$9 billion of this considered highly reliable, observed (c.f. projected) costs. Most (82%) of these observed economic costs are associated with damage, with comparatively little invested in management (18%). Reported costs are increasing over time, with damage averaging US$120 million per year and exceeding management expenditure in all decades. Where specified, most reported costs are from terrestrial plants and animals, with damages most often borne by primary industries such as agriculture and forestry. Management costs are associated more with interventions by authorities and stakeholders. However, some known ecologically (c.f. economically) impactful invasive species are notably absent from estimated damage costs, and management costs are not reported for a number of game animals and agricultural pathogens. Given these gaps for known and potentially damaging invaders, we urge improved cost reporting at the national scale, including improving public accessibility through increased access and digitisation of records, particularly in overlooked socioeconomic sectors and habitats. This also further highlights the importance of investment in management to curtail future damages across all sectors.

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New Zealand as a leader in conservation practice and invasion management

Cited by 16 publications

References 64 publications

Robustness of field studies evaluating biodiversity responses to invasive species management in New Zealand

Robustness of field studies evaluating biodiversity responses to invasive species management in New Zealand

Climate‐change impacts exacerbate conservation threats in island systems: New Zealand as a case study

Building a synthesis of economic costs of biological invasions in New Zealand

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