Abstract
In a world of increasing interconnections in global trade as well as rapid change in climate and land cover, the accelerating introduction and spread of invasive species is a critical concern due to associated negative social and ecological impacts, both real and perceived. Much of the societal response to invasive species to date has been associated with negative economic consequences of invasions. This response has shaped a war-like approach to addressing invasions, one with an agenda of eradications and intense ecological restoration efforts towards prior or more desirable ecological regimes. This trajectory often ignores the concept of ecological resilience and associated approaches of resilience-based governance. We argue that the relationship between ecological resilience and invasive species has been understudied to the detriment of attempts to govern invasions, and that most management actions fail, primarily because they do not incorporate adaptive, learning-based approaches. Invasive species can decrease resilience by reducing the biodiversity that underpins ecological functions and processes, making ecosystems more prone to regime shifts. However, invasions do not always result in a shift to an alternative regime; invasions can also increase resilience by introducing novelty, replacing lost ecological functions or adding redundancy that strengthens already existing structures and processes in an ecosystem. This paper examines the potential impacts of species invasions on the resilience of ecosystems and suggests that resilience-based approaches can inform policy by linking the governance of biological invasions to the negotiation of tradeoffs between ecosystem services.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 399-407 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Environmental Management |
| Volume | 183 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2016 |
Funding
The Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is jointly supported by a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the University of Nebraska−Lincoln, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Management Institute. This research was partially conducted with the support of two appointments to the Research Participation Program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Risk Management Research Laboratory, one administered by the National Academies Research Associateship Program, and one by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the August T. Larsson Foundation of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences , the U.S. Geological Survey John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis , the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (contribution number 1817 ) and the Swedish Research Councils Formas ( 2014-1193 ) and Vetenskapsrådet ( 2014-5828 ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| 1817 | |
| Nebraska Game and Parks Commission | |
| University of Nebraska-Lincoln | |
| 2014-1193 | |
| 2014-5828 | |
Keywords
- Adaptive governance
- Adaptive management
- Biological invasions
- Ecological resilience
- Ecosystem services
- Invasive species
