Evaluation of factors influencing the eradication of annual bluegrass (Poa annua L.) from Point Thomas Oasis, King George Island, Maritime Antarctica

Islands in the ice: Potential impacts of habitat transformation on Antarctic biodiversity

Antarctic biodiversity faces an unknown future with a changing climate. Most terrestrial biota is restricted to limited patches of ice-free land in a sea of ice, where they are adapted to the continent's extreme cold and wind and exploit microhabitats of suitable conditions. As temperatures rise, ice-free areas are predicted to expand, more rapidly in some areas than others. There is high uncertainty as to how species' distributions, physiology, abundance, and survivorship will be affected as their habitats transform. Here we use current knowledge to propose hypotheses that ice-free area expansion (i) will increase habitat availability, though the quality of habitat will vary; (ii) will increase structural connectivity, although not necessarily increase opportunities for species establishment; (iii) combined with milder climates will increase likelihood of non-native species establishment, but may also lengthen activity windows for all species; and (iv) will benefit some species and not others, possibly resulting in increased homogeneity of biodiversity. We anticipate considerable spatial, temporal, and taxonomic variation in species responses, and a heightened need for interdisciplinary research to understand the factors associated with ecosystem resilience under future scenarios. Such research will help identify at-risk species or vulnerable localities and is crucial for informing environmental management and policymaking into the future.

Unified system describing factors related to the eradication of an alien plant species

Background

In the field of biological invasions science, a problem of many overlapping terms arose among eradication assessment frameworks. Additionally there is a need to construct a universally applicable eradication evaluation system. To unify the terminology and propose an eradication feasibility assessment scale we created the Unified System for assessing Eradication Feasibility (USEF) as a complex tool of factors for the analysis of eradications of alien (both invasive and candidate) plant species. It compiles 24 factors related to eradication success probability reported earlier in the literature and arranges them in a hierarchical system (context/group/factor/component) with a possibility to score their influence on eradication success.

Methodology

After a literature survey we analyzed, rearranged and defined each factor giving it an intuitive name along with the list of its synonyms and similar and/or related terms from the literature. Each factor influencing eradication feasibility is ascribed into one of four groups depending on the context that best matches the factor: location context (size and location of infestation, ease of access), species context (fitness and fecundity, detectability), human context (knowledge, cognition and resources to act) and reinvasion context (invasion pathways). We also devised a simple ordinal scale to assess each factor's influence on eradication feasibility.

Conclusions

The system may be used to report and analyze eradication campaign data in order to (i) prioritize alien species for eradication, (ii) create the strategy for controlling invasive plants, (iii) compare efficiency of different eradication actions, (iv) find gaps in knowledge disabling a sound eradication campaign assessment. The main advantage of using our system is unification of reporting eradication experience data used by researchers performing different eradication actions in different systems.