Optimal Removal Scenario in Spatial Perspective for Effective Management of Invasive Species: Focused on Common Ragweed

Invasive species are becoming a global problem in that it affects various damages to the ecosystem, human health, agriculture, etc, and among them, common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia var.elatior(L.)Desc) is known as one of the important invasive species to manage. Accordingly, several invasive species managements were proceeded, mainly focused on 'removal', but without considering spatial analysis. In this study, we analyzed various removal scenarios based on two different removal strategies, [Outside-in] and [Inside-out] which include spatial perspective by considering species' density, with several removal rates. [Outside-in] was the removal strategy that removes species starting from low-density regions, whereas [Inside-out] was to remove from high-density regions. In order to classify the spatial region for the priority removal of each strategy, we defined the density level, and then processed the removal of occurrence points for each strategy in repetition to derive generalized results. We used the species distribution model, MaxEnt, for deriving the predicted distribution of target species with each removal strategy applied, and the final random generalized occurrence point results were used as input data. Comparative analysis was conducted based on the final probability distribution and appearance level for each scenario, with the newly proposed index, 'Removal Effect Index (REI)'.