Prioritizing Invasive Plants and Planning for Management

Abstract

The management of invasive nonindigenous (NI) plant species in natural areas or native landscapes is an expensive and complex task for resource managers. Unlike weed control in agricultural situations where the objective is to control all species except the crop, resource managers often want to control one or several undesirable species while causing little or no impact to components of the native community or to natural ecological processes. Managers often are faced with invasion and establishment of hundreds of NI plant species with little knowledge of the effects or potential effects a species may have on the land they manage. It is often unknown if control is feasible or what the cost of a control program may be. Managers need tools to evaluate objectively the kinds and levels of impacts that NI species are causing, their potential for becoming a worse threat, and the feasibility of their control to guide prioritization.