Adaptive management of alien invasive species: putting the theory into practice

Abstract

Even though often based on scarce information, many actions due to conservation ofbiodiversity need to be carried out as matters of urgency. In the case of biological invasions, this is acommon situation, as the real possibilities for controlling an invasive alien species are significantlyreduced as it establishes and spreads over natural ecosystems. Adaptive management, that is, man-agement practices planned on a solid experimental basis, allows managers to tackle urgent problemsat the same time they generate essential information to test the effectiveness of control practices andthe precision of assessments of the impacts of invasive species over natural ecosystems or of the needto carry out complementary restoration practices. The basic principles of adaptive management arepresented in this paper with examples of its application in the control of invasive alien species in thepampas of Argentina.