Testing the adaptive advantage of a threatened species over an invasive species using a stochastic population model

Abstract

Introduced species are a major threat to freshwater biodiversity. Often eradication is not feasible, and management must focus on reducing impacts on native wildlife. This requires an understanding of how native species are affected but also how environmental characteristics influence population dynamics of both invasive and native species. Such insights can inform how to manipulate systems in order to take advantage of life-history traits native species possesses that invaders do not. The highly invasive fish, Gambusia holbrooki, has been implicated in the decline of many freshwater fish and amphibians. In south-eastern Australia, one of these is the threatened native fish, Galaxiella pusil..