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This paper develops a two-region ecological-economic model of invasive alien species (IAS) management, integrating prevention and eradication with logistic growth and an Allee effect. It analytically compares cooperative and non-cooperative outcomes, revealing that IAS persistence is the norm without an Allee effect, but eradication becomes feasible with it due to altered system dynamics and locally stable extinction. Cooperative management, particularly with rapid intervention and precautionary regulation, expands eradication feasibility and reduces aggregate social costs.
The Allee effect, often overlooked, is critical for IAS eradication feasibility, transforming the management landscape from inevitable persistence to a basin of attraction for extinction.
Invasive alien species (IAS) generate substantial ecological and economic damages that often transcend political boundaries, creating strong incentives for coordinated management. We develop a two-region ecological-economic model of IAS control that integrates prevention and eradication measures with population dynamics characterized by logistic growth and an Allee effect. We derive analytical results on the interaction between ecological thresholds and strategic behaviour and compare outcomes under cooperation (central planner) and non-cooperation (open loop Nash equilibrium and Markovian Nash equilibrium). We show that, under realistic control costs, neither prevention nor eradication can eliminate invasive populations in finite time, and complete prevention of cross-border spread is generally not optimal. In the absence of an Allee effect, the zero-population equilibrium is unstable, implying long-run persistence of the invasive species. By contrast, the presence of an Allee effect fundamentally alters system dynamics by making extinction locally stable and creating a basin of attraction within which eradication becomes feasible. This finding highlights the economic significance of ecological thresholds and demonstrates how delays in management can shift populations beyond critical levels, after which eradication is unlikely regardless of subsequent control efforts. Numerical simulations further show that cooperative management expands the set of initial conditions leading to eradication and consistently reduces aggregate social costs relative to decentralized management. The results provide a formal rationale for rapid intervention, precautionary regulation, and stronger multilateral cooperation in IAS management, particularly in jurisdictions such as the European Union where listing and control actions may be delayed pending evidence of harm.