Browsing by Subject "Aquatic invasive species"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Assessing the Effectiveness of Aquatic Invasive Species Outreach Influencing Boater Behavior in Five States
    (2010) Jensen, Douglas A; Damme, Susan; Gunderson, Jeff
    This study was the first to comprehensively assess and compare the efficacy of boater outreach aimed at preventing the introduction and spread of (AIS) in five states. Boaters in California, Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, and Vermont were surveyed by mail (53% of 1,952 boaters responded) to determine their awareness of AIS and the actions they took or would be willing to take to prevent the spread of AIS. Boaters were especially knowledgeable and took greater levels of action at water accesses in Minnesota (90%) and Vermont (82%) than in Ohio (45%), California (40%), and Kansas (30%). An indication that AIS outreach can sustain behavior is the 20% increase in taking desired actions by Minnesota boaters; 70% reported taking action in 1994. Importantly, when asked about the likelihood of taking actions in the future, intent for action rose to over 94% in each state. Boaters reported taking action based on such attitudes as "a sense of personal responsibility", “a desire to keep AIS out of our lakes”, and "prevent damage to my boat and equipment". Comparing these survey results to those previously reported by boaters in each state, the frequency of potential introduction of AIS (a.k.a., propagule pressure) decreased between 57-93%. This study demonstrates that effective AIS outreach can motivate boaters to act regardless of region. It also reveals that boaters will most likely take action if outreach is made a priority, targets the most important means for outreach, frames value on personal actions that are effective in preventing spread (self-efficacy), and conveys consistent messages. Human dimensions research offers an opportunity to improve AIS outreach, and help sustain and influence behaviors among boaters. More effective outreach offers an opportunity improve AIS management and policy.
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    Developing a decision support tool for improved aquatic invasive species management
    (2013-03) Sharpe, Leah M.
    Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are a serious problem with adverse ecological, economic, and social impacts. These wide-ranging impacts mean similarly wide ranges of affected and interested parties (stakeholders) and of knowledge and data types being involved in AIS decisions. Decision support tools (DST) can be powerfully effective methods for helping to simplify complex decisions, incorporating different types of knowledge, and assisting in clear communication between involved parties. Developing a useful DST, however, requires understanding the needs, priorities, and concerns of broader stakeholders as well as the managers responsible for making the decisions. It also requires understanding the legal and policy context for these decisions. This dissertation reports the results of research conducted to understand stakeholders’ attitudes and concerns about genetic biocontrol (a new AIS control technology currently under development), understand the strengths and weaknesses of the current decision-making process used by AIS managers, and examine the effectiveness of the National Invasive Species Act, the key piece of federal AIS legislation regarding management of AIS. Together, these results form building blocks for developing a DST for improved management of AIS. Information on stakeholder perspectives on development of new AIS control technologies, involving genetic manipulations, was gathered in a series of focus groups in the United States Great Lakes and Lake Champlain regions. Stakeholders were enthusiastic about the potential inherent in these new technologies but remained deeply concerned about potential unintended consequences. Key concerns related to ecological impacts, the cost of development, and the possibility that this research will detract from other, ongoing control work. Stakeholders also had a number of recommendations for development of these new technologies that have implications for broader AIS management. These recommendations included engaging stakeholders throughout the development process, employing clear go/no-go reasoning, and using a transparent decision-making process. A series of interviews with natural resource managers was undertaken to improve understanding of the current decision-making environment and identify its strengths and weakness. These interviews illuminated the priorities and concerns underlying managers’ decision-making processes, their perceptions of existing strengths and weaknesses of these processes, and the issues that a decision support tool could help them to better address. In their work, managers must balance a wide range of priorities competing with one another for limited resources (e.g., prevention and containment efforts, research into new control tools, control and eradication efforts). The existing decision-making environment succeeds at facilitating coordination between agencies and communication with the broader public. This process, however, currently lacks several principles of robust decision-making including sufficient scientific basis, structure, documentation, and an adaptive element. The results indicate that AIS decisions could be strengthened by explicitly incorporating these principles into the decision-making process and that use of a decision support tool would be an effective way of carrying out such incorporation. Finally, I analyzed the National Invasive Species Act, arguably the most important federal policy dealing with AIS, using peer-reviewed and grey literature, as well as natural resource manager interviews to assess whether or not the Act had met its stated goals. The results indicate the Act has had limited success in achieving its objectives, especially in preventing introductions of new invasive species and limiting the spread of invasive species already present, but has been effective in organizing national and regional coordination via the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force and its regional panels. Results suggest that reauthorizations of the Act should grant additional authority to regulate introductions via pathways other than ballast water to a federal agency and that the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force should be granted additional authority and resources to allow it to further increase regional coordination of control and containment efforts. Together, these results allowed me to design a blueprint for a DST responsive to the needs of stakeholders, managers, and federal level policy. I developed a simplified sample of the DST to illustrate how it combines spatial data with manager experience and stakeholder priorities to determine key areas for management actions (i.e. monitoring, quarantines, and control efforts).
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    Evaluating non-detection risk associated with high-throughput metabarcoding methods for early detection of aquatic invasive species
    (2015-06) Hatzenbuhler, Chelsea
    Given the costs associated with traditional taxonomic identification of many aquatic organisms, metabarcoding analyses have gained recognition as potentially powerful tools for early detection of aquatic invasive species. A practical early detection strategy, however, demands balancing detection costs with an acceptable level of non-detection risk. Here we evaluated non-detection risk associated with some standard metabarcoding methods by constructing artificial community samples with known species richness and relative biomass abundance composed of fish tissue from multiple "non-target"� species and spiked with various proportions "target" tissue from a single species not already present in the sample. Our main findings provided convincing experimental evidence that we can detect the genetic signal produced by target species comprising as low as 0.02% - 1% of total sample biomass and demonstrated the lowest limit of detection observed for each target species varied between experiments.
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    Lake Superior Aquatic Invasive Species Complete Prevention Plan
    (2014) Lake Superior Binational Program
    This report summarizes a team effort to identify methods and actions to prevent new exotic species from entering Lake Superior. The plan seems to acknowledge that introduction of AIS is a result of generally unintentional human behavior, and is therefore preventable. Key contents of the report are extracted and reproduced below. Abstract: “Situated at the head of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway system, a 2,342 mile long (3,700 km) water navigation system connected to global trade, Lake Superior is at risk for continued invasion by aquatic invasive species (AIS), including plants, animals, and microscopic organisms. As of April 2010, 89 non-native aquatic species have been found in Lake Superior. These include Eurasian watermilfoil, sea lamprey, and most recently, the fish disease Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS). AIS have caused devastating economic and ecosystem effects that impart significant losses to the region in the form of damage and control costs, degraded water quality, job losses, declining property values, compromised native species, decreased biodiversity, and other negative impacts. “This Lake Superior Aquatic Invasive Species Complete Prevention Plan outlines recommended actions that need to be newly implemented, in addition to existing efforts, to prevent new aquatic invasive species from entering and becoming established in the Lake Superior ecosystem. Through the process of developing this plan, Canadian and U.S. government agencies involved in the Lake Superior Lakewide Action and Management Plan (LAMP) have consulted broadly and have developed recommendations for consideration by each jurisdiction. However, citizens, organizations and government agencies in both Canada and the United States need to work together to implement the recommended actions and ensure that protecting Lake Superior from new invasive species is a top priority for all. The Lake Superior LAMP will utilize an adaptive management approach to monitoring implementation progress and overall effectiveness of this prevention plan. “Key recommended actions for the United States and Canada include: ● Implement compatible, federal regulatory regimes for ballast water discharge that are protective of the Great Lakes for both the U.S. and Canada. ● Support the development, testing and implementation of effective ballast treatment systems that meet the operational characteristics of Great Lakes ships. ● Establish federal screening processes for organisms in trade to classify species into three lists: prohibited, permitted, and conditionally prohibited/permitted. ● Establish an immediate moratorium on the trade of prohibited species. ● Consider the concept of a “Certified Pathogen-Free through Raising from Seed” category for plants sold through garden centers and nurseries. ● Expand or implement education programs to increase consumer awareness of the risk of AIS. ● Require permits for shoreline restoration projects, which identify AIS introduction issues and include best management practices and restrictions that minimize the potential for introducing invasive species. ● Implement education programs to raise awareness of the issue and promote compliance with prevention actions among contractors and residents. ● Ensure that existing laws prohibiting the sale of invasive species are enforced for on-line and mail order purchases of aquatic plants. ● To prevent the illegal transport of bait across the U.S./Canadian border and on shared waters, ensure effective education and prevention efforts at border crossings and at retail bait shops, and conduct monitoring to gauge the effectiveness of such efforts. ● Make AIS prevention education, regulation, and enforcement a priority in all Lake Superior jurisdictions, and implement prevention approaches that target specific audiences (e.g., boaters, anglers, professional fishing guides, plant nurseries). ● Build capacity for education and enforcement efforts within local communities by providing outreach products that can be tailored for local use, and coordinate consistent messaging across jurisdictions. ● Explore options for a broad range of prevention measures at public boat launches. ● Review and adjust policies for the operation of the locks at Sault Ste. Marie to include best management practices that effectively prevent fish from passing through the locks, including closing the upper and lower gates when not in use and the use of in-stream barriers or deterrent technologies, if necessary. ● Investigate options to achieve ecological separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds to protect the Great Lakes from the invasion of Asian carp. ● Until ecological separation is achieved, maintain the electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal at optimum conditions and ensure their continued operation. ● Establish structural measures to prevent the inadvertent introduction of Asian carp from floodwaters of the Des Plaines River into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. ● Adapt invasive species management to the challenge of a changing climate – monitor ecosystem changes, coordinate information resources, and engage in further research.”
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    Phenology data for watermilfoil taxa Myriophyllum spicatum, M. sibiricum, and M. spicatum x M. sibiricum in Minnesota, USA, 2017 - 2018
    (2021-11-15) Glisson, Wesley J; Larkin, Daniel J; wjglisson@gmail.com; Glisson, Wesley; Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center
    In North America, the hybrid aquatic plant Myriophyllum spicatum × Myriophyllum sibiricum (hybrid watermilfoil, HWM) is a cross between non-native invasive Eurasian watermilfoil (M. spicatum, EWM) and native northern watermilfoil (M. sibiricum, NWM). We compared HWM to its parental taxa, EWM and NWM, by examining the amount and timing of: 1) flowering, 2) surface cover, and 3) biomass (using stem counts as a proxy). We conducted repeat surveys of Myriophyllum beds at eight lakes (2–3 lakes/taxon) in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan area (Minnesota, USA) between June 2017 and November 2018. To sample biomass without destroying plants, we developed a novel sampling device that uses underwater video to measure Myriophyllum stems; we validated the utility of this device by comparing Myriophyllum stem counts and biomass collected from the same locations. The data from these studies are provided and documented here.