How to manage a commercially valuable invasive species – buffel grass?

Cenchrus_ciliaris Have you ever been in a position where you had to make a decision but you were torn by conflicting objectives? Well, that is a very common issue when managing an invasive species that is also valuable for society. Unfortunately such a situation often paralyze the decision making process. In a recent paper to appear in Agricultural Systems led by Isabelle Grechi, we looked at how we could model such decision problem and propose valid solutions based on our so-called conflicting objectives. We introduce happyness curve to do so! We applied our decision framework to buffel grass (it doesn’t get more controversial than this plant in Australia!).

Have a look at the paper:

Grechi, I., I. Chades, Y. Buckley, M. Friedel, A. C. Grice, H. P. Possingham, R. D. van Klinken, and T. G. Martin. 2014. A decision framework for management of conflicting production and biodiversity goals for a commercially valuable invasive species. Agricultural Systems 125:1-11.

Highlights:

• Commercially valuable invasive species present a conflict for management.
• We model buffel grass dynamics with production and biodiversity benefits and costs.
• Management solutions are found that account for production-biodiversity trade-offs.
• Solutions are sensitive to the shape of the buffel cover–biodiversity relationship.
• Solutions are less sensitive to uncertainty about the management effectiveness.