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Invasive Plant Management
The Center for Invasive Plant Management promotes the ecologically-based management of invasive plants in the West. Ecologically-based invasive plant management requires an understanding of the biology of the plants and ecology of the system while focusing on developing and maintaining desired plant communities.
The first step in weed management planning is to identify land management goals, desired plant communities, and weed management objectives. Here we list online resources for developing weed management plans to manage the weed species or weed populations that threaten your goals.
Developing a weed management plan:
- Perform an inventory or survey if needed to find out what's there.
- Identify and prioritize weed species and/or weed population threats.
- Consult our Weed I.D. and Worst Weeds in the West pages to identify your weeds and learn about their biology.
- Understand the impacts of your weeds.
- See if they are on your state or province's noxious weed list.
- Assess your management options, including prevention, restoration/revegetation, and prescribed burning and other control strategies.
- Monitor your management actions and then evaluate your results to determine whether your weed management objectives are being achieved.
Developing a Weed Management Plan
Adaptive Weed Management Plan Template from The Nature Conservancy. A three-part tool: (1) An introduction to the philosophy of adaptive management. (2) Weed Management Plan Template, including boiler-plate language to ease the planning process and help prioritize weeds. (3) Excel workbook to keep track of your work and costs.
- Weed Information Management System (WIMS) from The Nature Conservancy. WIMS keeps track of weed occurrences (GPS point locations), assessments (size and status of the weed infestation to facilitate monitoring over time), and management treatments applied to those weed infestations.
Creating an Integrated Weed Management Plan—A Handbook for Owners and Managers of Lands with Natural Values. Volume IV in "Caring for the Land Series , from the Colorado Natural Areas Program. Provides the tools and information necessary for public and private landowners to manage noxious weeds successfully in natural areas, wildlands, and rangelands. Free downloads (pdf file) on the website.
The Ecological Site Information System (ESIS) is the repository for the data associated with the collection of forestland and rangeland plot data and the development of ecological site descriptions. ESIS is organized into two applications and associated databases T:he Ecological Site Description (ESD) application provides the capability to produce automated ecological site descriptions from the data stored in its database. The Ecological Site Inventory (ESI) application provides the capability to enter, edit, and retrieve rangeland, forestry, and agroforestry plot data.
Invasive Exotic Plant Management Tutorial for Natural Lands Managers A "one-stop-shop" for natural resource managers who are interested in organizing on-the-ground efforts to prevent, manage and control IEPs. From Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council, Inc., and PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources.
NEPAnet. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations governing herbicde use.
Seven Steps to Managing Your Weeds: A Guide to Integrated Management in British Columbia (pdf).
Prioritizing Weed Threats
California Weed Risk Assessment Workshop, Proceedings. Notes from presentations and facilitated discussions from 2006 workshop organized by Cal-IPC.
The Criteria System for categorizing invasive non-native plants that threaten wildlands. Page 7 in Cal-IPC 2006 Invasive Plant Inventory (pdf)
Evaluating Risk to Native Plant Communities from Selected Exotic Plant Species Developed by the Forest Service to help land managers identify the native plant communities most threatened by invasive plants. Land managers in Montana and Northern Idaho can use this program to prioritize and strategize their weed management efforts.
Invasive Species Assessment Protocol: Evaluating Non-Native Plants for Their Impact on Biodiversity (Morse, et. al., NatureServe, 2004). The protocol is designed to make the process of assessing and listing invasive plants objective, systematic, and transparent and will help set priorities focusing scarce management resources.
Measuring Plant Diversity: Lessons from the Field. Because resident native diversity can affect the likelihood of invasion by non-native plants, it is critical that scientists accurately assess the composition of plant communities over large areas. A newly released book by USGS ecologist Tom Stohlgren, Measuring Plant Diversity: Lessons from the Field (Oxford University Press, 2006), presents field and analysis methods that can more accurately describe plant biodiversity and help evaluate vulnerability to invasion.
Inventory and Survey
California Weed Mapping Handbook. Provides information on (1) shared data standards, so that different data sets will be compatible, and (2) “how to” instructional information on mapping techniques. Its aim is to help those working on weed issues to develop mapping systems that will support project goals on both a local and state level. PDF (2 MB) download on website.
A field manual for surveying and mapping nationally significant weeds (pdf). I McNaught, R Thackway, L Brown & M Parsons; published by Australia's Bureau of Rural Sciences, 2006. A 52-page manual explaining standardized, systematic procedures for collecting core weed infestation data for mapping those plants that are Australia's 20 "weeds of national significance."
Introduction to Mapping Noxious Weeds in Montana.
Inventory and Survey Methods for Nonindigenous Plant Species. MSU Extension Publications, Sept. 2006. Practical information for sites of any size, staffing level, or budget. Color photos, maps, and diagrams; 80 p. $20 includes shipping and handling. For discounts on orders of 25 or more, email dbrokke@montana.edu. Order Publication EB 0171 from MSU Extension Publications, P.O. Box 172040, Bozeman, MT 59717-2040. Phone: 406-994-3273; email: orderpubs@montana.edu
Map Important Weeds for A Living Inventory, part of the War on Weeds series from University of Nevada Extension Publications.
Mapping Standards from NAWMA (the North American Weed Management Association).
Montana Noxious Weed Survey and Mapping System — Guidelines for a statewide mapping project.
Nevada Weed Mapping Data Standards (draft) The intent is to have a statewide standard that offers maximum flexibility in accommodating different data collection protocols, yet captures all of the data essential to compiling a uniform, high-quality statewide data set.
Non-native Plants of the Kenai Peninsula: Summary of a 2-year Roadside Inventory Example of a baseline inventory, conducted across the Kenai Peninsula by the KP-CWMA.
Remote sensing of invasive plants, on the TNC Invasive Species Initiative website. An introduction intended to help land managers decide if remote sensing could be a useful tool for them.
Weed Manager's Guide to Remote Sensing and GIS from the USDA Forest Service.
Vegetation Mapping Program from NPS.
YST Mapping Project. Detailed methods, forms, and sample maps used in Cooperative Western Sierra Nevada Yellow Starthtistle Mapping & Assessment Project.
Monitoring
Invasive Species Monitoring Resources from NPS. Guidelines, protocols, assessment, references, and more.
Measuring and Monitoring Plant Populations (5.3 MB pdf). Elzinga, Salzer, and Willoughby. 2001. BLM Technical Reference 1730-1. 492 pp. Order print copies from BLM Library or email BLM_NCS_PMDS@blm.gov. Also available from online and retail booksellers.
Monitoring: How Can I Monitor without Spending a Lot of Time and Money? From USDA Forest Service A Weed Manager's Guide to Remote Sensing and GIS.
Monitoring Changes in Exotic Vegetation, by Robert D. Sutter, TNC. " An overview of the most important monitoring issues, modified to address the management of exotics."
Monitoring Non-Native Plant Populations, by Rew and Maxwell, Chapter 7 in CIPM Online Invasive Plant Management Textbook.
Natural Resources Monitoring Partnership (from NBII). The Monitoring Protocol Library is a searchable database of monitoring protocols and resource assessment methodologies. The Monitoring "Locator" is an internet-based GIS application that allows users to identify what natural resource monitoring is being conducted within a particular area (e.g., State, county, Canadian Province, or other selected geographic area). Users of this system will have search tools to find out about ongoing and historic monitoring according to the scales, targets, and objectives that are of interest to them.
Ecologically-based Management
Ecologically-based invasive plant management incorporates our understanding of ecosystem processes and patterns with appropriate tools to develop sustainable management programs. It requires:
- Understanding and manipulating the mechanisms and processes that affect plant communities
- Understanding and manipulating the biology and ecology of the invasive plant and the desired habitat
- Understanding that ecosystems have feedbacks and that manipulations will have foreseen and unforeseen consequences
- Understanding that management tools have limitations and are not benign
- Using performance indicators to measure management success
- Adapting management strategies as managment success is assessed.
- Ecologically-based invasive plant management recognizes that ecosystems are always changing.
- Ecologically-based invasive plant management also uses weed management technologies to manipulate the biology/ecology of both the invasive plants and the desirable species to create a desired state.
- The best ecologically-based management strategy is prevention.
These principles are consistent with the adaptive management approach because they build on learning, are a participatory approach to research and land management, recognize that effective management is based on sound science, assume a varieties of pathways can meet a given objective, and recognize that partnerships are essential to achieving sustainable ecosystems.
Publications
Our Suggested Reading list includes sources for books on ecology and related topics.
For more on ecological theory, see the list of academic references below.
Annotated Bibliographies on the Ecology and Management of Invasive Species. Useful list from GOERT, Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team in British Columbia.
Ecological Principles for Managing Land Use (579 KB pdf file) published by the Ecological Society of America’s Committee on Land Use. Identifies ecological principles critical to sustaining ecosystems in the face of land use
change; offers guidelines for using these principles in decision-making. This document is one of the modules in the EPA Watershed Academy Web, Online Training in Watershed Management.
Getting Up To Speed: A Conservationist’s Guide to Wildlife and Highways, from Defenders of Wildlife. Covers Law, Policy and Governance; Anatomy of a Road; Natural Environment; and Advocacy.
Healthy Plant Communities — MontGuide fact sheet 199909/Ag, MSU Extension, July 1999. Designed to help landowners make economically and ecologically sound weed management decisions. Explains how plant communities develop, how weeds invade and how you can work toward developing a desired plant community that is relatively weed-resistant.
Invasive Plant Ecology and Management, online resources from the Leopold Institute's Linking Wilderness Research and Management Series. Includes links to species lists, distribution records, control techniques, approaches to management, access to programs, and other resources.
Chapter 2 in CIPM Online Invasive Plant Management Textbook outlines ecologically based adaptive plant management.
"Ecological Management of Invasive Plants—Four Key Premises," from Knowledge networks: an avenue to ecological management of invasive weeds. Jordon, N., R. Becker, J. Gunsolus, S. White, and S. Damme, Weed Science 51(2): 271–277 (from BioOne journals online). (Excerpts below)
- A truly ecological approach to invasive management should aim at amelioration of weed communities.
- Invasive-plant management should be approached by taking the managed ecosystem itself—farm, ranch, forest, lake, etc.—to be the instrument of weed management.
- We must recognize the primary and crucial role of land managers: farmers, ranchers, foresters, etc., in invasive management by such ecosystem tuning.
- Innovation by land managers is not sufficient. Ecological management of invasives will require support from new or improved practices in a multiplicity of relevant sectors, e.g., extension workers, farm advisors, input suppliers, researchers of many sorts, equipment makers, and plant breeders . . . . Therefore, we call for a broad sweep of innovation to enable ecological management of invasive plants. Knowledge networks, as described above, appear to be an invaluable means to this end.
Primer of Ecological Restoration, from Society for Ecological Restoration, describes restoration planning, attributes of restored ecosystems and more.
Sand and gravel pits can be a source of weeds. The Greater Yellowstone Area has developed a sand/gravel pit certification program. The supporting documents for that program, easily adaptable to other places, are now online.
References
Booth, B. D., S. D. Murphy, and C. J. Swanton. 2003. Weed ecology in natural and agricultural systems. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK. Explains ecological principles essential to understanding how weeds function in the environment. Emphasizes why weed management strategies within an integrated weed management approach should be based on ecological knowledge. Requires only an understanding of basic biology. Covers population ecology, community ecology, the importance of weed ecology to weed management.
Luken, J. O., and J. W. Thieret. 1997. Assessment and management of plant invasions. Springer-Verlag, New York. Attempts to cast the issue of nonindigenous plant invasion in a broader ecological context that includes humans acting as managers of natural resources, designers of regulations, and disperses of organisms. Addressses important ecological interactions that emerge prior to plant invasion, as well as post-management interactions.
McPherson, G. R., and S. DeStefano. 2003. Applied ecology and natural resource management. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Practical guidelines for integrating applied ecology with natural resource management; describes how concepts and approaches used by ecologists to study communities and ecosystems can be applied to management.
Radosevich, S., J. Holt, and C. Ghersa. 1997. Weed ecology: Implications for management, 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. By considering weeds foremost as plants and by relying on the concepts of plant ecology, the authors hope to provide a better understanding of weeds that will lead to better crop and weed management.
Sheley, R. L., T. J. Svejcar, and B. D. Maxwell. 1996. A theoretical framework for developing successional weed management strategies on rangeland. Weed Technology 10: 766-773. Provides the mechanistic framework necessary for developing successional weed management systems that shift plant communities to a desired state.
