Management Strategy Evaluation Of Pheromone‐Baited Trapping Techniques To Improve Management Of Invasive Sea Lamprey

Abstract

We applied a management strategy evaluation (MSE) model to examine the potential costâ effectiveness of using pheromoneâ baited trapping along with conventional lampricide treatment to manage invasive sea lamprey. Four pheromoneâ baited trapping strategies were modeled: (1) stream activation wherein pheromone was applied to existing traps to achieve 10â 12 mol/L inâ stream concentration, (2) stream activation plus two additional traps downstream with pheromone applied at 2.5 mg/hr (reverseâ intercept approach), (3) trap activation wherein pheromone was applied at 10 mg/hr to existing traps, and (4) trap activation and reverseâ intercept approach. Each new strategy was applied, with remaining funds applied to conventional lampricide control. Simulating deployment of these hybrid strategies on fourteen Lake Michigan streams resulted in increases of 17 and 11% (strategies 1 and 2) and decreases of 4 and 7% (strategies 3 and 4) of the lakewide mean abundance of adult sea lamprey relative to status quo. MSE revealed performance targets for trap efficacy to guide additional research because results indicate that combining lampricides and high efficacy trapping technologies can reduce sea lamprey abundance on average without increasing control costs.