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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Burns, Oregon » Range and Meadow Forage Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #245877
Title: Principles for ecologically based invasive plant management

Author
item James, Jeremy
item Smith, Brenda
item Vasquez, Edward
item Sheley, Roger

Submitted to: Invasive Plant Science and Management
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/3/2010
Publication Date: 9/1/2010
Citation: James, J.J., Smith, B.S., Vasquez, E.A., Sheley, R.L. 2010. Principles for ecologically based invasive plant management. Journal of Invasive Plant Science and Management. 3:229-239.

Interpretive Summary: Land managers long have identified a critical need for a practical and effective framework to guide the implementation of successful restoration. Using the core concepts of succesional management that identify site availability, species availability and species performance as the three general causes of plant community change, we detail key principles that can link management tools to the ecological processes predicted to influence plant community change. Because this framework is based on ecological principles, it likely will have broad application across a range of restoration scenarios and allow mangers to transfer knowledge gained from one situation to another.

Technical Abstract: Land managers long have identified a critical need for a practical and effective framework to guide the implementation of successful restoration, especially where invasive plants dominate the ecosystem. A holistic, ecologically-based invasive plant management (EBIPM) framework that integrates ecosystem health assessment, knowledge of ecological processes, and adaptive management into a successional management model has recently been proposed. However, well-defined principles that link tools and strategies managers typically use to ecological processes that needed to be repaired have been slow to emerge, thus greatly limiting the ability of managers to easily apply EBIPM across a range of restoration scenarios. The broad objective of this paper is to synthesize current knowledge of the mechanisms and processes that drive plant community succession into ecological principles for EBIPM. Using the core concepts of succesional management that identify site availability, species availability and species performance as the three general causes of plant community change, we detail key principles that can link management tools used in EBIPM to the ecological processes predicted to influence the three general causes of succession. While we acknowledge identification of principles in ecology has greatly lagged behind other fields, and recognize that identification of ecological principles and the conditions in which they hold are still being developed, we demonstrate how current knowledge and future advances can be use to structure a holistic EBIPM framework that can be applied across a range of restoration scenarios.