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Biological invasions entail massive biodiversity losses and tremendous
economic impacts that justify significant management efforts. Because the
funds available to control biological invasions are limited, there is a need
to identify priority species. This paper first reviews current invasive
species prioritization methods and explicitly highlights their pitfalls. We
then construct a cost-benefit optimization framework that incorporates
species utility, ecological value, distinctiveness, and species
interactions. This framework offers the theoretical foundations of a simple
method for the management of multiple invasive species under a limited
budget. We provide an algorithm to operationalize this framework and render
explicit the assumptions required to satisfy the management objective.
