Defining a regional approach for invasive plant research and management - Invasive Plants: Ecological and Agricultural Aspects - page 139

These managers provide on-the-ground concerns and information about day-
to-day management activities while direct feedback from researchers hastens
the process of adaptive management (Fig. 3). Designing and conducting
research in collaboration with local land managers also is resulting in
increased applicability of the research. Each study was conceived and imple-
mented with land managers. During the course of data collection field tours to
view experiments and field training sessions are conducted as an integral part
of the regional research program.
Research results are often difficult to apply directly to large landscapes
because managers do not always incorporate scale and the nested interaction
of complex processes such as fire, herbivory, succession, land use change, or
disturbance corridors into their activities. Researchers, on the other hand, do
not usually integrate the routine operations of land managers, who are the end-
users of invasive plant experiments, into their studies. The studies we present
in our research framework were designed from the onset to incorporate the
invasion process, scale, and land manager input. By using the adaptive man-
agement in our research framework (Fig. 2), we place research activities with-
in a management context, and thereby avoid ineffectual approaches and over-
come manager criticisms.
Conclusions
There are many plant species present east of the Cascade Mountains in the
Pacific Northwest, as indicated in Table 1. Each of these species can be of con-
cern to local land managers in the Blue Mountains Ecoregion. Hobbs and
Humphries [30] suggest an approach to set priorities for management of inva-
sive plants based on land value and the degree of disturbance or risk of inva-
sion (Fig. 6). However, most extensive land management areas represent loca-
tions where determining management priorities is much more difficult than the
process indicated by Hobbs and Humphries [30]. Scientists can provide insight
into the management priority setting process by providing information on the
biology of invasive species, invasibility of habitats, and effectiveness of man-
agement tactics. We believe that a regional network of scientists and natural
resource managers working together is most effective in determining what
species to study and to diminish the impacts of invasive plants on extensive
land management systems. Scientific and other forms of expertise from vari-
ous sources can be coordinated to produce state-of-the-art knowledge about
natural resource areas that are at-risk and the human uses and values associat-
ed with those areas.
Experiments, risk assessments of invasive species, and projections of species
spread across susceptible landscapes after introduction help managers evaluate
the consequences of management activities, including doing nothing.
Combining information about multiple species also should result in a powerful
database for land managers to decide what areas and species should receive par-