Special Seminar - Wednesday June 29, 4pm
Progress towards understanding landscape-level impacts of aquatic invasive species
Jake Vander Zanden
Professor, Center for Limnology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Invasive species are a major component of global environmental change. Aquatic systems are especially vulnerable to
invasive species impacts. Much of our current understanding of aquatic invasive species impact is at the local or site
level. In contrast, invasive species impacts are playing out across vast spatial scales on heterogeneous landscapes, and
invasive species prevention and management efforts demands consideration of landscape-level impact. How can we ‘scale
up’ an understanding of site-level impacts to the broader landscape scale? This talk will synthesize how aquatic
invasive species distribution, site occupancy, abundance, and local impact ultimately determine landscape-level impact.
Scaling up our understanding of invasive species impacts to the landscape level and recognizing spatial heterogeneity
will help inform invasive species risk assessment, management, and prevention. While there remain many gaps in our
understanding, current evidence suggests that the spatial distribution of aquatic invasive species impacts is
right-skewed.
Venue: Benham Seminar Room, 2nd Floor Benham Building, Department of Zoology, University of Otago
ENDS