Identifying management guidelines to control the invasive House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) within natural protected areas through the estimation of local colonization and extinction probabilities

Invasive species hinder the conservation objectives of natural protected areas, particularly of those found within or nearby urban settlements. Identifying the habitat and landscape traits that determine the establishment and persistence of populations is essential for implementing effective management plans to control invasive species. We employed multi-season occupancy models to identify the habitat and landscape traits that determined the local colonization and extinction probabilities of an invasive bird (House Sparrow— Passer domesticus ), in order to provide recommendations for controlling its population within a natural protected area immersed in Mexico City. We selected traits that exhibited management potential to provide feasible recommendations for controlling the species. We observed that increasing values of shrub cover, tree cover, and distance to developed areas discouraged the sparrow from invading new sites of the reserve. Simultaneously, greater distances to developed areas promoted the extinction of the species across invaded sites. These effects might be related to resource availability, foraging preferences of the species, predatory exposure, and competition. Preserving tree and shrub cover as a natural barrier for dissuading species arrival represents a key management objective for its control in the reserve. Greater management efforts must be focused at those sites of the reserve that are closer to developed areas, given that the latter may function as source habitats for the House Sparrow. Our approach for identifying management actions that impact the population dynamics of an invasive species might provide crucial results to control this type of populations. Such a strategy could be replicated for other species and natural protected areas to enhance the conservation value of reserves and provide alternatives when dealing with invasive species.