Geology topics

Brielle K. Thompson

Publications and source records attributed to Brielle K. Thompson.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2026

Society’s struggle with unwanted species: What centuries of history reveal about species bounty programs

Species bounty programs, much like bounty hunters charged to bring fugitives to justice, enlist the public to locate and remove unwanted species through financial incentives. With the goal of reducing population sizes, these programs address perceived ecological and economic damage caused by target species. In this study, we provide the first global assessment of species bounty programs, drawing on evidence from both historical and contemporary efforts across diverse regions and cultural contexts over the past eight centuries. We uncovered a long history of bounty programs involving at least 283 species—mammals, birds, fish, plants, reptiles, mollusks, insects, amphibians, and crustaceans—across 449 programs in 60 countries. Using this collective knowledge, we offer five perspectives on species bounty programs. First, bounty programs are launched for a variety of reasons, including economic (livestock, crops, fisheries, infrastructure), ecological (species, ecosystems), and social (human health) considerations related to unwanted species. Second, bounty programs vary in their design and implementation, ranging from well-planned operations with clear management and conservation objectives to ad hoc operations with limited articulation and investigation of project outcomes. Third, evidence points to unintended consequences, in which bounty programs result in the incidental removal of non-target species or in effects that may inadvertently benefit target species. Fourth, while not always the case, fraudulent activities have been reported, compromising the management outcomes of some programs. Fifth, public perception of bounty programs is highly dynamic and ensuring program engagement remains a persistent challenge. By reviewing the scattered narratives of past and present bounty programs globally, this review seeks to inform the evolving role of this management strategy.

npj Biodiversity↗

USGS2025

Balancing monitoring and management in the adaptive management of an invasive species

Efficient allocation of managers' limited resources is necessary to effectively control invasive species, but determining how to allocate effort between monitoring and management over space and time remains a challenge. In an adaptive management context, monitoring data are key for gaining knowledge and iteratively improving management, but monitoring costs money. Community science or other opportunistic monitoring data present an opportunity for managers to gain critical knowledge without a substantial reduction in management funds. We designed a management strategy evaluation to investigate optimal spatial allocation of resources to monitoring and management, while also exploring the potential for community science data to improve decision-making, using adaptive management of invasive flowering rush ( Butomus umbellatus ) in the Columbia River, USA, as a case study. We evaluated management and monitoring alternatives under two invasion conditions, a well-established invasion and an emerging invasion, for both risk-neutral and risk-averse decision makers. Simulations revealed that regardless of invasion condition or managers' risk tolerance, allocating effort outward from the estimated center of invasion ( Epicenter prioritization) resulted in the lowest overall level of infestation at the end of management. This allocation outperformed alternatives in which management occurred in fixed areas ( Linear prioritization) and alternatives that targeted patchily distributed areas with the highest estimated infestation level of the invasive species ( High invasion prioritization). Additionally, management outcomes improved when more resources were allocated toward removal effort than monitoring effort, and the addition of community science data improved outcomes only under certain scenarios. Finally, actions that led to the best outcomes often did not produce the most accurate and precise estimates of parameters describing system function, emphasizing the importance of using value of information principles to guide monitoring. Our adaptive management approach is adaptable to many invasive species management contexts in which ongoing monitoring allows management strategies to be updated over time.

Oregon, Washington↗

USGS2024

Evaluating spatially explicit management alternatives for an invasive species in a riverine network

Invasive species have substantial ecological and economic costs and removing them can require large investments by management agencies. Optimal spatial allocation of removal effort is critical for efficient and effective management of invasive species. Using a series of ecologically informed model simulations, we evaluated and compared different spatially explicit removal strategies for invasive rusty crayfish ( Faxonius rusticus ) in the John Day River, USA. We assessed strategies in terms of their performance on three likely management objectives: suppression (minimise overall population abundance), containment (minimise the spatial extent of invasion) and prevention (minimise spread into a specific area). We developed five spatial removal strategies to achieve those objectives, denoted as: Target Abundance (removal at locations with the highest population abundance), Target Growth (removal at locations with the highest population growth), Target Edges (removal at the most distant locations in the river), Target Downstream (removal at the most downstream invaded segments on the Mainstem), and Target Random (removal at randomly selected locations). Each strategy was assessed at various effort levels, referring to the number of spatial segments in the river in which removals were conducted, after seven years of management. We identified the alternative that best achieved each objective, based on decision criteria for risk-neutral and risk-averse decision-makers and further evaluated strategies based on Pareto efficiency, which identifies the set of alternatives for which an improvement on one objective cannot be had without a decline in performance on another. We found that Target Abundance and Target Growth strategies best achieved the suppression objective, for risk neutral and risk averse decision-makers, respectively and Target Downstream was always best in achieving the prevention objective across both types of decision-makers. No single strategy consistently performed best in terms of the containment objective. In terms of all three objectives, Target Downstream was consistently Pareto efficient across all levels of management effort and both decision criteria. The modelling framework we provided is adaptable to a variety of riverine invasive species to help assess and compare spatial management strategies.

Oregon↗

USGS2021

Mechanistic invasive species management models and their application in conservation

Management strategies to address the challenges associated with invasive species are critical for effective conservation. An increasing variety of mathematical models offer insight into invasive populations, and can help managers identify cost effective prevention, control, and eradication actions. Despite this, as model complexity grows, so does the inaccessibility of these tools to conservation practitioners making decisions about management. Here, we seek to narrow the science-practice gap by reviewing invasive species management models (ISMMs). We define ISMMs as mechanistic models used to explore invasive species management strategies, and include reaction-advection–diffusion models, integrodifference equations, gravity models, particle transport models, nonspatial and spatial discrete-time population growth models, cellular automata, and individual-based models. For each approach, we describe the model framework and its implementation, discuss strengths and weaknesses, and give examples of conservation applications. We conclude by discussing how ISMMs can be used in concert with adaptive management to address scientific uncertainties impeding action and with multiple objective decision processes to evaluate tradeoffs among management objectives. We undertook this review to support more effective decision-making involving invasive species by providing conservation practitioners with the information they need to identify tools most useful for their applications.

Conservation Science and Practice↗