Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research's video: Uncovering the Achilles heel - Animal behaviour in pest management Webinar

New Zealand has set itself the ambitious goal of eradicating the most destructive invasive species from the mainland. Achieving eradication requires that all pests are removed, but despite our best efforts, control operations always leave behind a subset of animals that fail to respond to management. In this presentation, Patrick will discuss insights from behavioural ecology that can be applied for invasive species management. Behaviour-based approaches suggests that instead of targeting the ‘average’ pest, we should instead target the ‘individual’, to improve population level control. In recent years, research in animal behaviour has revealed that all animals possess different ‘personalities’, with some individuals being risk averse (‘shy’), which will reduce the likelihood that they will interact with control tools (traps or baits). Accounting for these individual differences can improve the efficacy of control tools and reduce the cost of mopping-up survivors. Patrick discusses approaches that exploit individual variation based on four core motivations: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and fornication. He also provides suggestions for cue-based tools to manipulate these motivations, thus improving pest management outcomes.