Benefits of standardized surveys and data centralization: a case study using New York’s Watercraft Inspection Steward Program Application (WISPA)

Minimizing overland transport of aquatic invasive species (AIS) via recreational watercraft is an essential component of invasive species spread prevention.Watercraft inspections at launch sites are a widely applied strategy to reduce humanmediated transport of AIS to protect priority waterbodies and offer public education and training of preventative cleaning procedures.Watercraft inspections also represent an opportunity to collect useful information for ecosystem managers on watercraft movement patterns and species occurrences that can be applied to risk assessments and early detection rapid response programs.New York State (NYS) in the Northeastern USA implemented use of a Watercraft Inspection Steward Program Application (WISPA) in 2018, which is a form-based survey that populates a centralized database with several data fields that include spatially explicit location, watercraft type, origin waterbody, and species observations.Coordinated and standardized collection of this data equips AIS managers with substantial information to make data-driven decisions.Here, we summarize the information collected in the WISPA database during the first six years of use and highlight two key management uses for this information using a set of eight popular destination lakes.Boater connectivity maps of origin-destination links are valuable to acknowledge the breadth of origins travelling to NYS destinations, and to identify the highest-magnitude connections that likely represent increased-risk pathways for species transport."Hits" analysis is an applied mechanism to relate species interceptions to a confirmed presence database to identify previously undocumented species occurrences and direct early detection rapid response survey priorities.WISPA has been effective to establish the data infrastructure needed to support systematized data collection during watercraft inspection surveys and increase managers' ability to make informed decisions about AIS management.