Exotics Species Workshop Abstracts 2008
Exotics Home | Workshop Agenda
Strategic Exotics Management Control - Are you using all your tools?
Alison Higgins, The Nature Conservancy
South Florida and the Caribbean is host to some of the richest biodiversity in the world. The region is also home to some of the most vulnerable landscapes. Increasing the capacity of land managers to foresee, prevent and control threats to their conservation lands before the habitat is compromised is the only recognized method to efficiently and successfully ensure healthy landscapes.
Although fire and invasive plant management are typically seen as two separate land management needs, the increase of invasive grasses and other invaders that promote or are promoted by fire, has forced practitioners on both sides to learn the others' tools, although often too late to abate the threat efficiently or effectively. Advancing the needs and tools of both the fire and invasives communities requires a proactive approach that explores the connections between fire and invasives across the greater landscape, while building the capacity of practitioners on the ground.
Is that a Native or an Exotic Grass?
Mike Barry, Institute for Regional Conservation & Jean McCollum, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
A description of exotic grasses & native grasses that might get confused, and how to identify them in the field.
Melaleuca Research at Florida Gulf Coast University: A multi-disciplinary approach to understanding its impacts in SW Florida.
Paul Julian, FGCU Grad Student & UF/IFAS
Contributors: Paul Julian, Brian Bovard, Brenda Brooks, Mary Kay Cassani, David W. Ceilley, Marilyn Cruz-Alvarez, Nora E. Demers, Edwin M. Everham III, Anne Hartley, Travis Knight, Robert Liesure III, and Marty Main
Students and faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University have developed a broad research response to investigating the ecological impacts of the invasive exotic Melaleuca quinquenervia. In 1997, we established a one-hectare long-term forest dynamics plot to investigate the impact of Melaleuca on native tree growth. We have completed our second remeasurement of that plot, and evolved the study into the impact of a variety of Melaleuca-removal techniques on the native vegetation. Following a fire on campus in 2004, we initiated a study to investigate the interaction between fire stress and biocontrol agents in forest stands with differing degrees of Melaleuca infestation. Following the active hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, we investigated the impacts of hurricane winds on trees in southwest Florida, including Melaleuca. In 2005, our Biotechnology program started using molecular genetic techniques to investigate the possibility of a founder effect, creating two varieties of Melaleuca on the east and west coasts of South Florida as a result of different introduction events. In 2007, we began applying new technologies to investigate whole-tree and ecosystem water-use in Melaleuca stands. Current studies include quantifying the impact of Melaleuca removal on the growth and transpiration of native trees, quantification of wetland function under varying infestation levels, experimentation with new Best Management Practices that could include Melaleuca mulch as a water quality treatment, and investigating the possible impacts of Melaleuca invasion and Melaleuca removal on habitat suitability for the Florida Panther.
DOT's Invasive Plant Policies Affect Our Roadways
Tim Allen, Florida Department of Transportation
A brief description on the department's policies and procedures on turf management and invasive species. A Q&A session will follow.