How effective are buffer zones in managing invasive beavers in Patagonia? A simulation study
Authored by Gina K Himes Boor, William F Morris, Alejandro G Pietrek
Date Published: 2017
DOI: 10.1007/s10531-017-1373-1
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Abstract
In an age of invasions, it is critical to design and test management
strategies to more efficiently control foreign species. Spatially
explicit individual based models (SEIBMs) are a powerful tool to explore
different management scenarios to control invaders, but we rarely have
enough data to parameterize these models, particularly for relatively
long-lived species. Here we take advantage of our previous work
estimating demographic rates of invasive beavers in Patagonia, and
develop an SEIBM to model the spread of beavers in Patagonia. We used
our SEIBM both to estimate dispersal distances by fitting their observed
rate of spread and to test how placing a buffer zone (a longitudinal
strip of land perpendicular to the direction of spread within which a
fraction of beavers are culled) beyond the invasion front would work as
a control strategy. Specifically, we explored six different scenarios
with two different culling rates and two buffer zone widths. We found
that beavers in Patagonia must disperse long distances on average to
account for the observed rate of spread, and thus our model predicts
that a 100 km buffer zone will be needed to slow (but likely not halt)
the spread of beavers. Interestingly, culling a higher proportion of
beavers within a 100 km buffer zone (90 vs. 60\%) did not improve buffer
zone performance. Our study shows that wide buffer zones can slow (but
likely not halt) continental spread of beavers in Patagonia and
potentially pave the way for beaver eradication.
Tags
Management
movements
Density-dependent dispersal
Spatial spread
Ecosystem function
Range expansions
Tierra-del-fuego
Castor canadensis
Cordon sanitaire
Long distance dispersal
Patagonia
Seibm
Castor-canadensis
American beaver
Cape-horn