Innovation Summit Abstracts

Making the Case for Innovation
Jamie K. Reaser

Invasive species are among the most significant yet least addressed challenges of our time. Even though they threaten livelihoods and lives, the invasive species problem is often considered too big, too complex, and too costly to address. This limiting belief has undermined the will and innovative spirit necessary to safeguard the environment and other national assets. The Innovation Summit will foster new technological breakthroughs and new beliefs about what is possible. We need to make the bold decision to take on the invasive species challenge and trust that the practical solutions will follow.

Rethinking the Trap (And Other Developments in Lionfish Control)
Steve Gittings

The lionfish invasion across the wider Caribbean is among the greatest threats to the region’s native ecosystems.  To date, population control has been primarily by spearfishing at scuba depths, but high populations exist hundreds of feet deep.  Stemming the invasion will require culling in priority conservation areas and commercial harvesting over the entire range of the invasion.  Many technologies are being tested for capturing or killing lionfish, including mechanical and electronically operated traps, and a variety lethal devices carried by divers, ROVs, and AUVs.  Remote spearing, vacuums, electrocution, poison injection, and laser cutting have all been either proposed or attempted.

Burmese Pythons and Other Large Constrictors
Gintas Zavadskas

Abstract Unavailable

Hawai’ian Islands and Guam: Invasive Species Challenges for Avian Conservation
Earl Campbell (presenter), Mary Abrams, Craig Clark, Larry Clark, Domingo Cravalho, John Eisemann, Joshua Fisher, Robert “Goose” Gosnell, Steve Hess, Stephen Miller, Brand Phillips, Will Pitt, Robert Reed, Shane Siers, David Tessler
 
The conservation of endemic Pacific Island avifauna and their ecosystems has been a long-term goal of resource managers. In the Hawai`ian Islands and Guam, innovative approaches have been developed and implemented for multi-scale ungulate, small mammal, and brown treesnake control. Cutting edge tools and mechanisms are presently being developed to control introduced snakes on Guam at a landscape scale. In addition, significant initiatives are underway to find pioneering solutions for broad, landscape-scale control of introduced mosquitoes. These on-going efforts shine a bright light on the future protection and recovery of Pacific Island avifauna. 

Invasion Impacts and Innovation in the North American Great Lakes
David M. Lodge

The invasive subset of almost 200 nonindigenous species in the North American Great Lakes cause at least $200M in annual damages. Those damages have mostly been accepted as a necessary by-product of global trade. Such fatalism is however unnecessary and financially foolish.  Recent innovations are reducing invasions from ships, and from commerce in living organisms, while simultaneously increasing net economic benefits. New DNA-based technologies provide improved early detection tools, which, if combined with large-scale eradication and control technologies, open the door to a virtuous cycle of innovation, business opportunity, and environmental protection.

Pathway Spotlight: Ship’s Ballast Water and Hull Biofouling
Greg Ruiz

Abstract not available.

Herbicide Ballistic Technology (HBT) Deployed to Eliminate Incipient Miconia in the East Maui Watershed
James Leary

Miconia was introduced to East Maui as a single horticultural specimen circa 1970.  The management of miconia commenced two decades later and continues on today.  Native to Central and South America, this species has many biological attributes that make it a highly successful invader of Hawaii including high adult fecundity and frugivorous dispersal of progeny.  In less than 40 years, incipient miconia populations have invaded remote sections of the East Maui Watershed (EMW).  Herbicide Ballistic Technology (HBT) is a concept for pneumatically delivering 0.68 caliber herbicide-filled projectiles with long range, surgical accuracy (i.e., 30 m distance) with wide vertical and horizontal attitudes allowing us to uniquely treat targets on cliff faces or deep gullies that would otherwise be inaccessible to conventional management options. The best utility of HBT has been demonstrated as a novel treatment platform on manned helicopter surveillance/reconnaissance operations searching for incipient populations in these remote, inaccessible areas; virtually doubling the efficiency of flight time by combining intelligence gathering with target elimination in real time.  Starting in 2012, we have conducted over 100 missions, approaching 500 hours of operational flight time (OFT), treating over 20,000 high-value, incipient targets covering 8,800 ha of the watershed.  This robust set of institutionalized operations data allows us to explore novel performance analytics in a real management setting, i.e., search efficiency, herbicide use rate, etc., largely driven by target densities encountered.  A further advancement of HBT was the development of a telemetry system providing a higher degree of spatial resolution and an accurate account of herbicide dose, with every projectile discharged, time-stamped and georeferenced with more exacting off-set locations.  All of these variables can be monetized for determining variable costs of an operation.  On average, operations search ~50 ha hr-1 treating ~47 targets ha-1 at an estimated cost of less than $30 USD ha-1.  With basic GIS, we have determined the dispersal kernel of miconia in the EMW, with 99% of progeny within 600 m of the maternal source and stochastic events occurring up to 1644 m away.  Thus, further assisting with determination of area impacted.  Our goal is to use these new model parameters for optimizing containment strategies with effective impact reduction and highest return on future cost avoidance.  The aerial deployment of HBT is proving to be an efficient management system reducing further impact to these fragile ecosystems.

Potential Game Changers: Spotlight on Emerging Technologies
Vince Bryan III

As invasive fish species threaten ecosystems and native fish populations, federal, state, and tribal fisheries managers try to control and contain these “invasives”—while also complying with mandates to assure volitional fish passage for all fish species in all waterways. Because these policies appear to be at odds with one another, we will address solutions to both problems and examine how the Whooshh system could be used at migratory intersections to effectively pass native fish species while also permanently removing invasive fish species from the waterway. 

Utilization of Unmmaned Aerial Systems (UAS) for Vegetation Mapping and Restoration
Jon Morton

The Jacksonville District of the USACE has been exploring the use of Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) since 2005 to gain spatially accurate, very high-resolution imagery (~3cm) for the detection and monitoring of select invasive species and to support ecosystem restoration efforts.  Now that the imagery acquisition part of the UAS program is fully operational, the focus is on assessing and quantifying the data within the images for a variety of different invasive species and vegetative community mapping projects. This presentation will give a background of the Corps’ use of UAS and some of the current technologies and challenges associated with image acquisition, processing, and analysis.

DNA-Based Diagnostics for Invasive Species Management
David Baisch

Molecular diagnostic tools have been developed in leaps and bounds in recent years for use in clinical settings, and a call for the application of similar molecular methods has been made for conservation applications and in the research and management of invasive species. This presentation will consider the advancements made in eDNA applications in monitoring and detection of invasive species, and consider where these methods are headed as these technologies improve over time. Several technologies will be discussed, including POC systems and Next-Generation Sequencing, along with the future of sequence data management for use in not only invasive population identification and elimination, but also in early detection and rapid response of invasive invasions.

Genetic Engineering to Control Mosquitoes: The Oxitec Solution
Derric Nimmo

The Aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible for transmitting several of the most debilitating mosquito-borne viruses, including dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever. Native to Africa, Aedes aegypti has now spread across the world, and it is estimated that up to half of the world’s population lives alongside this invasive species. The lack of available treatments for many of the diseases transmitted by the mosquito means that controlling the Aedes aegypti population is the best way to combat disease. However, control of this species poses numerous challenges. The mosquitoes live in and around human habitation so can be very difficult to reach. They have also developed resistance to many existing chemical insecticides, interventions which may also have damaging effects on health and the environment. With the best methods currently available, mosquito control organizations are generally only able to suppress Aedes aegypti populations by 30-50% at best, which is not sufficient to prevent disease transmission.

Gene Drive and RNAi Applications for Rodent Eradication
Karl Campbell

Invasive vertebrates are implicated in 58% of all extinctions; most have occurred on islands with invasive rodents responsible for more than half. Broad-spectrum toxicants, the current rodent eradication tool, lack species specificity, limiting feasibility and broad application of this strategy. Gene drives may emerge as a potential species-specific tool that holds promise for invasive rodent eradication on hitherto unconsidered scales. Teams are assessing the technical feasibility of this technology in mice while simultaneously assessing ecological risks, public/stakeholder tolerance, regulatory gaps and ethical questions to evaluate suitability of this tool. RNA interference also holds promise for future developments in rodent-specific toxins.