Bounty hunters keep invasive species in check

At least for now another successful case where the Public are invited to join the force to control invasive species, reported Nature. 

Another successful example I saw recently was how community participation and adaptive management turned back the tide of American mink invasion in Scotland. 

Of course such a strategy does not always work, and the same article mentioned a couple of examples: pythons in Florida and red foxes in Australia.  The pythons proved tough to catch because they were hard to spot in the Florida brush, and the removal of 1/5 of Victoria red foxes ended up boosting the population because the survivors thrived when they had less competition. 

Here is a recent paper reviewing such public-involved harvest programs.

Speical issue on Risks, Decisions, and Biological Conservation

In the Journal of Diversity and Distributions Vol 19 (5-6). 

Interesting conclusion drawn by the Special issue editors in their introduction piece:

"Policy makers and conservation managers aspire to set evidence-based priorities, and technical specialists aim to have their methods used in decision-making. Scientists will succeed if, as the articles in this issue exemplify, they develop a sound understanding of the context of the decisions in which their tools are to be used and shape them accordingly."

Habitat as a good predictor for the invasion risk assessment

At least this is proven to be true for plant invasion in Europe based on several field studies ( Habitat invasions by alien plants: a quantitative comparison and Separating Habitat Invasibility by Alien Plants from the Actual Level of Invasion).  Using habitat as the indicator, researchers now are able to map alien plant invasions and more recently, even project trends under different policy scenarios of future land use change). 

One insight from the projecting study was that implementation of sustainability policies would not automatically decrease the spread of alien plants.  So invasion requite specific policy actions beyond the general ones. 

Special issue on the economics of animal health

In EuroChoices Vol 11 Issue 2, 2012

Honeybee blues

A documentary called Honeybee blues (youtube link) was on SBS last night.  It tells the amazing story of the disappearing honeybees world-wide and how Dr Denis Anderson, my colleague here in CSIRO, fought "Varroa destructor" to save the bees. 


I have known Denis' work for years but I didn't know the larger context of his work.  For instance, I wasn't aware that Australian beekeepers exported bees to the US, because Australia was the only country in the world free of the Varroa mite.  Along with what I gathered when talking to another bee expert and a bee keeper, watching the documentary made me more intrigued by the bees/bee industry/bee keepers' life (they are very Nomadic) and more appreciative of Australian honey, which I enjoy pretty much every day...

Alleged agricultural bias in biosecurity law

The current laws are dominated by agriculture interests, claimed the Invasive Species Council.
The council wants the new law to:

1. Ensure transparent decision-making guided by independent science.
   
2. Ensure that systems specifically aimed at stopping environmental invasives reach the same level of priority as those enjoyed by industry.
   
3. Harness the intellectual firepower of the community environment sector in shaping invasive species policy and responses.
   
4. Adopt the ‘polluter pays’ principle to fund environmental restoration (details).

Update: Both WRA (Weed risk analysis) and IRA (Import risk analysis) have to consider potential environmental impacts, according to R. Randall and B. Ikin (via Aliens list).

Special issue: Pest risk analysis, the PRQTIQUE way

In EPPO Bulletin, Vol 42 (1), 2012. 

The importance of weeds on a UK farm

A recent study in Science identified the most important plants within the networks of 1501 interactions between 560 taxa on a 125ha farm in Somerset, UK.  These plants have substantial and disproportionate cascading effects across the multiple networks and could provide benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Yet, some of these plants are typically regarded as farmland weeds, including thistles, cow parsley, clover and buttercups (Table S6). 

Ecologically-based invasive plant management (EBIPM)

 

A new framework created by USDA scientists to manage invasive plants, the framework includes the following steps:

                                                          .