Optimizing invasive species management using mathematical programming to support stewardship of water and carbon-based ecosystem services.

Invasive species alter hydrologic processes at watershed scales, with impacts to biodiversity and the supporting ecosystem services. This effect is aggravated by climate change. Here, we integrated modelled hydrologic data, remote sensing products, climate data, and linear mixed integer optimization (MIP) to identify stewardship actions across space and time that can reduce the impact of invasive species.

Carbon stocks of intact mangroves and carbon emissions arising from their conversion in the Dominican Republic.

Mangroves are recognized to possess a variety of ecosystem services including high rates of carbon sequestration and storage. Deforestation and conversion of these ecosystems continue to be high and have been predicted to result in significant carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Yet few studies have quantified the carbon stocks or losses associated with conversion of these ecosystems.

Carbon pool and biomass dynamics associated with deforestation, land use, and agricultural abandonment in the neotropics.

Current rates of deforestation and the resulting C emissions in the tropics exceed those of secondary forest regrowth and C sequestration. Changing land-use strategies that would maintain standing forests may be among the least expensive of climate change mitigation options. Further, secondary tropical forests have been suggested to have great value for their potential to sequester atmospheric C.