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.