[APWG] microstegium management
S. Luke Flory
sflory at indiana.edu
Mon Feb 16 11:25:06 CST 2009
Hi Marc,
This sounds interesting - have you published it? Did you compare the
treated areas to untreated, uninvaded control plots? Or did you have
data on the community composition before the invasion? We struggled with
this issue and it is a common problem in invasion ecology studies. We
had no way to know how "restored" the native communities were but I
don't think they had fully recovered from the effects of the invasion
after two years of treatment. We didn't have pre-invasion data (which
would be confounded with time anyway) and we couldn't find uninvaded
habitats with identical environmental conditions to use as controls.....
Luke
ialm at erols.com wrote:
> We found at Swann Park in Charles county, Maryland, that native plants
> fully returned after 5 years to small (~0.1 acre) post-emergent treated
> monocultural patches. Two years was not enough. We hand weeded where
> Microstegium was mixed with natives.
>
> Marc Imlay. Ph. D
>
>
> Conservation Biologist, Anacostia Watershed Society
> (301-699-6204, 301-283-0808, 301-442-5657 cell)
>
> Vice president of the Maryland Native Plant Society
> Hui o Laka at Kokee State Park, Hawaii
> Board member of the Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council,
> Chair of the Biodiversity and Habitat Stewardship Committee
> for the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club.
>
>
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: S. Luke Flory sflory at indiana.edu
> Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:53:29 -0500
> To: ForestRuss at aol.com, APWG at lists.plantconservation.org,
> MIPN at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [APWG] microstegium management
>
>
> Thanks for the link Russ.
>
> Coincidentally, we just had some more research published on the response
> of native communities to removal of Microstegium. The paper is titled,
> "Invasive plant removal method determines native plant community
> responses" and can now be accessed in the Online Early section at the
> Journal of Applied Ecology. I have pasted the abstract below and you can
> contact me for the PDF if you don't have full text access to JAE.
>
> This is a follow-up to my recent publication in Restoration Ecology on
> managing invasions. I do agree though - our research certainly isn't
> keeping up with the spread of invasions.
>
> Luke
>
>
>
> Invasive plant removal method determines native plant community responses
>
> S. Luke Flory and Keith Clay
> Department of Biology, Indiana University, 1001 East 3rd Street,
> Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
>
> Summary
> 1.Restoration of habitats invaded by non-native plants should include
> both the removal of invasive
> plants and re-establishment of native plant communities. To develop
> appropriate restoration
> strategies and quantify the effects of invasions, experiments that
> evaluate multiple removal methods
> and native community responses to those removal methods are needed.
> 2.We evaluated the response of native plant communities to removal of
> the invasive grass
> Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stiltgrass) in eastern forests in the
> USA. At eight field sites in
> southern Indiana, we applied three common removal treatments and
> compared native community
> responses among treatments and to untreated reference plots.
> 3.After 2 years of treatment, native community responses to Microstegium
> removal varied significantly
> among methods and plant functional groups in autumn 2006. Graminoid
> richness was greater
> when the invader was removed with hand-weeding, while graminoid biomass
> was lower in plots
> treated with post-emergent herbicide compared to reference plots. Forb
> richness was greater with
> hand-weeding and post-emergent herbicide compared to plots treated with
> post-emergent plus
> pre-emergent herbicides or untreated plots. Forb biomass was greater
> across all removal treatments.
> Overall native community diversity was 24% greater when the invasion was
> removed with handweeding
> and 21% greater with post-emergent herbicide compared to reference
> plots. No positive
> response in plant diversity occurred with post-emergent plus
> pre-emergent herbicide.
> 4. By spring 2007, graminoid percentage cover was greater with
> hand-weeding but not with
> herbicide treatments compared to untreated plots. However, forb cover
> was greater across all
> removal treatments compared to plots where the invader was not removed.
> The density of native
> tree seedlings was 123% greater in post-emergent herbicide treated plots
> than in untreated plots,
> indicating that the invasion was inhibiting tree recruitment.
> 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results demonstrate that multiple
> techniques can be used to
> control invasive plants but that the responses of native plant
> communities vary among removal
> methods. Further, greater native plant diversity and biomass following
> removal shows that
> invasions were suppressing native plant communities. Management of plant
> invasions should
> consider not only the effectiveness of removal methods but also how
> different methods influence
> native plant responses.
>
> Key-words: diversity, evenness, grass-specific post-emergent herbicide,
> hand-weeding, Japanese
> stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum, non-native grass, pre-emergent
> herbicide, richness
>
>
>
> ForestRuss at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Dear All:
>>
>> During the past several years I have spent a nearly obscene amount of
>> time trying to figure out how to control the spread of Japanese
>> stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum, in my extremely fertile central
>> West Virginia woodland that is near the epicenter of a major invasion
>> by the weed.
>>
>> It appears that the spread of Microstegium is far outpacing the
>> research that is investigating the environmental impacts and
>> consequences of a stiltgrass invasion.
>>
>> With that in mind. I recently prepared an article for the Woodland
>> Owners Association of West Virginia newsletter listing insights I have
>> developed and suggestions for containing the spread of stiltgrass.
>>
>> I hope that the information on the following link is of some use to
>> APWG or PCA list members.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> http://www.forestguild.org/ecological_forestry/Stiltgrass_and_woodsroad_main
> tenance.pdf
>
>>
>> Russ Richardson
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
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