[APWG] CONFERENCE: USDA Interagency Forum on Invasive Species (Annapolis, MD)

[Olivia Kwong]

http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/interagency_forum/

USDA Interagency Forum on Invasive Species
Tuesday, January 11.Friday, January 14, 2011
Loews Annapolis Hotel, Annapolis, Maryland

The USDA Forum on Invasive Species is an annual meeting that began in 1990 
as the "USDA Interagency Gypsy Moth Research Forum". The purpose was to 
coordinate research on the European and Asian gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar 
L., among USDA agency scientists and their university cooperators by 
facilitating the exchange of information and data and encouraging their 
collaboration. This assured a degree of accountability and minimized the 
duplication of effort among the many scientists who conduct research on 
this serious forest pest. This meeting gained added stature when 
scientists from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere in North America learned of 
this meeting and began to attend and participate. The involvement of 
foreign scientists from countries where gypsy moth and related species 
have been native pests for centuries has added a different perspective to 
the meeting and has enhanced international cooperation, particularly in 
the use of biologically based technologies.

Consequently, beginning with the 1996 meeting, the scope of the 
Interagency Research Forum was broadened and the Program Committee has 
devoted a significant portion of the agenda to highlight the threat of 
select nonnative invasive species. In recent years, a complex of nonnative 
species (NIS) including the Asian Longhorned beetle, large-pine shoot 
moth, hemlock woolly adelgid, cedar emerald ash bores and Asian gypsy moth 
have been introduced into North American and collectively threaten our 
North American forest and urban ecosystems. Additionally, pathogens (e.g. 
Beech Bark Disease, sudden oak death, and butternut canker) and exotic 
weeds(e.g. mile-a-minute weed and kudzu) contribute to our management 
problems.

General Topics include:

     * Invasive Plants and Their Impacts
     * Gypsy Moth Research
     * Risk Assessment for Invasive Species
     * Exotic Wood Boring Insects
     * Biological Control
     * Alien Forest Pathogens
     * International Forest Insects and Disease Reports