Potential Applications of Population Viability Analysis to Risk Assessment for Invasive Species

ABSTRACT

Population viability analysis, the use of ecological models to assess a population's risk of extinction, plays an important role in contemporary conservation biology. The premise of this review is that models, concepts, and data analyses that yield results on extinction risk of threatened and endangered species can also tell us about establishment risks of potentially invasive species. I briefly review important results for simple unstructured models, demographic models, and spatial models, giving examples of the application of each type of model to invasive species, and general conclusions about the applicability of each type of model to risk analysis for invasive species. The examples illustrate a portion of the range of potential applications of such models to invasive species, and some of the types of predictions that they can provide. They also highlight some of the limitations of such models. Finally, I present several conjectures and open research questions concerning the application of population viability analyses to risk analysis and control of invasive species.

Keywords:

• exotic species
• pest risk assessment
• ecological model
• demography
• establishment
• review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by Cooperative Agreement 02-0101-0047-CA between New Mexico State University and the USDA/APHIS. My thinking on this subject has been refined by conversations with Mark Powell, Richard Fite, Wendy Fineblum-Hall, Craig Chioino, and David Oryang. Additional useful comments were provided by two anonymous referees. Stephanie Caballero and Shelley Cowden provided clerical assistance, Jason Northcott provided library assistance, and Megan Ewald provided library and editorial assistance. This is a publication of the New Mexico State Agricultural Experiment Station.