Genetic Allee Effects for Controlling Invasive Populations.

ABSTRACT: Invasive pests threaten food security and devastate ecosystems. A universal problem in their management is that small populations can easily evade detection. This makes identifying new incursions challenging and complicates efforts to eradicate or contain established populations. If newly founded populations exhibited a strong Allee effect, small populations would tend towards extinction and most new incursions would go extinct without the need for detection or intervention. Of course, invasive species rarely exhibit strong Allee effects, but new genetic technologies make it conceivable to impose one. Here we consider how introduction of genetic load can cause a genetic Allee effect that reduces the establishment probability of small founder populations. Using numerical and individual-base

SUBMITTER: Nowell Nicolle L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12759233 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature