Detecting and Responding to Alien Plant Incursions

Description

Ecologists, land managers and policymakers continue to search for the most effective ways to manage biological invasions. An emerging lesson is that proactive management can limit negative impacts, reduce risks and save money. This book explores how to detect and respond to alien plant incursions, summarising the most current literature, providing practical recommendations and reviewing the conditions and processes necessary to achieve prevention, eradication and containment. Chapter topics include assessing invasiveness and the impact of alien plants, how to improve surveillance efforts, how to make timely management decisions, and how legislation and strategic planning can support management. Each chapter includes text boxes written by international experts that discuss topical issues such as spatial predictive modelling, costing invasions, biosecurity, biofuels, and dealing with conflict species.

John R. Wilson has published over 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals on a wide range of ecological and evolutionary topics, with a particular focus on invasion science. Based in South Africa, he is a member of the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group, and works across science, management, and policy. F. Dane Panetta has over 40 years of weeds-related research experience in the areas of ecology, risk assessment and incursion management. He has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has edited or co-edited three books, including one on weed risk assessment. Cory Lindgren has expertise in policy and planning, spatial predictive modelling and early detection and rapid response, and has been working with invasive plants for over 25 years in Canada, heading up a number of groups and forums.

'The very well-crafted categorization and lucid illustration of problems and how to approach them make it easy to determine a potential strategy and, if not successful, have an alternative strategy right at hand. Thus, this book is a clear guideline for people preparing strategic plans for or how to learn about controlling invasive plants. Moreover, it also provides a nice basic framework into further research into strategic planning when dealing with invasive species in general. For that reason, the volume is an excellent read for experienced scientists studying the ecology and evolution of invasiveness or the practical approaches to alien plant incursion control. However, and probably even more so, the book is a great and easy start for beginners or students working on invasive species to establish a clear framework for categorizing specific knowledge and plan future studies.' Andre Kessler, The Quarterly Review of Biology