Regional Invasive Species & Climate Change Management Challenge: Marine Mischief: Salt marshes, climate change, and invasive species, oh my!

New England salt marshes are highly productive, providing ecosystem services for people and native biodiversity. Human activities are causing climate change and affecting species composition in salt marshes, threatening these valuable ecosystems. The fate of these ecosystems depends on their natural resistance and the management actions taken in the immediate future

Regional Invasive Species & Climate Change Management Challenge: Out of Control? The Effects of Climate Change on Biological Control Agents and their Target Hosts

Biocontrol is an important management tool that utilizes one species (a biocontrol agent) to control another (a target host) and can be an effective approach for controlling populations of invasive species across broad spatial scales. Most strategies of biocontrol involve introducing or supplementing natural predator, herbivore, parasitoid, or pathogen populations to reduce populations of target hosts. A successful biocontrol program results in the suppression (but not eradication) of target host populations across the landscape by reducing host abundance, reproductive output, or vigor. Climate change is complicating biocontrol. Biocontrol agents must have a clear ecological and/or evolutionary relationship with their target host in order to control populations effectively and avoid impacting non-target species. Climate-induced changes in phenology (timing of life events), morphology (form/structure), movement/behavior, physiology, and reproduction/development may differently affect the survival, reproduction, and performance/efficacy of both biocontrol agents and their hosts. There are growing concerns that mismatches between how biocontrol agents and their hosts respond to climate change could alter the efficacy of current and future biocontrol programs

Taxonomic relationships of established plant species in the conterminous United States

Invasion status of non-native vascular plants established in the conterminous United States and their phylogenetic relationships to other invaders at multiple taxonomic resolutions.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1179/thumbnail.jp

Historical plant sales (HPS) database: Documenting the spatiotemporal history of plant sales in the conterminous U.S.

The purpose of this database was to extract, standardize, and geocode the historical trade of vascular and non-vascular plant taxa sold in the horticultural industry of the conterminous United States. The HPS database aims to serve as a resource for analysis of contemporary patterns of introduced and invasive plants as well as for identifying opportunities to expand native plant sales in horticulture. Key data sources that make up this database include the Biodiversity Heritage Library\u27s Seed and Nursery Catalog Collection, and the book Restoring American Gardens by D.W. Adams.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1176/thumbnail.jp