Coevolution between native and invasive plant competitors: implications for invasive species management

Invasive species may establish in communities because they are better competitors than natives, but in order to remain community dominants, the competitive advantage of invasive species must be persistent. Native species that are not extirpated when highly invasive species are introduced are likely to compete with invaders. When population sizes and genetic diversity of native species are large enough, natives may be able to evolve traits that allow them to co-occur with invasive species. Native species may also evolve to become significant competitors with invasive species, and thus affect the fitness of invaders. Invasive species may respond in turn, creating either transient or continuing coevolution between competing species. In addition to demographic factors such as population size and growth rates, a number of factors including gene flow, genetic drift, the number of selection agents, encounter rates, and genetic diversity may affect the ability of native and invasive species to evolve competitive ability against one another. We discuss how these factors may differ between populations of native and invasive plants, and how this might affect their ability to respond to selection. Management actions that maintain genetic diversity in native species while reducing population sizes and genetic diversity in invasive species could promote the ability of natives to evolve improved competitive ability

Strategic Sharing Workbook: Youth Voice in Advocacy

This workbook is for individuals who have experienced traumatic life experiences and are interested in sharing their stories in an effort to promote change. Training in Strategic Sharing is an important part of advocacy – we encourage anyone who has experienced traumatic life events and wishes to share those experiences in an effort to promote positive changes for yourself and/or others, to do so with the help of this guide. As you will see mentioned several times in this workbook, it is really important that you take the time to take care of yourself. This training was not developed to help anyone overcome aspects of trauma; it was created to help individuals avoid retraumatization when sharing their traumatic experiences with others. So we encourage everyone using this workbook to either continue with your mental health services or to seek out mental health supports. This guide is also meant to help you better convey your message to others. The whole purpose of advocacy is to inspire change on some level. With Strategic Sharing Training, you will be better equipped to do just that. Learning how to safely and effectively share your story will have a lasting impact on individuals and inspire change in not only your life, but in the lives of others

Establishment and management of native functional groups in restoration

The limiting similarity hypothesis predicts that communities should be more resistant to invasion by non-natives when they include natives with a diversity of traits from more than one functional group. In restoration, planting natives with a diversity of traits may result in competition between natives of different functional groups and may influence the efficacy of different seeding and maintenance methods, potentially impacting native establishment. We compare initial establishment and first-year performance of natives and the effectiveness of maintenance techniques in uniform versus mixed functional group plantings. We seeded ruderal herbaceous natives, longer-lived shrubby natives, or a mixture of the two functional groups using drill- and hand-seeding methods. Non-natives were left undisturbed, removed by hand-weeding and mowing, or treated with herbicide to test maintenance methods in a factorial design. Native functional groups had highest establishment, growth, and reproduction when planted alone, and hand-seeding resulted in more natives as well as more of the most common invasive, Brassica nigra. Wick herbicide removed more non-natives and resulted in greater reproduction of natives, while hand-weeding and mowing increased native density. Our results point to the importance of considering competition among native functional groups as well as between natives and invasives in restoration. Interactions among functional groups, seeding methods, and maintenance techniques indicate restoration will be easier to implement when natives with different traits are planted separately. © 2013 Society for Ecological Restoration

Establishment and management of native functional groups in restoration

The limiting similarity hypothesis predicts that communities should be more resistant to invasion by non-natives when they include natives with a diversity of traits from more than one functional group. In restoration, planting natives with a diversity of traits may result in competition between natives of different functional groups and may influence the efficacy of different seeding and maintenance methods, potentially impacting native establishment. We compare initial establishment and first-year performance of natives and the effectiveness of maintenance techniques in uniform versus mixed functional group plantings. We seeded ruderal herbaceous natives, longer-lived shrubby natives, or a mixture of the two functional groups using drill- and hand-seeding methods. Non-natives were left undisturbed, removed by hand-weeding and mowing, or treated with herbicide to test maintenance methods in a factorial design. Native functional groups had highest establishment, growth, and reproduction when planted alone, and hand-seeding resulted in more natives as well as more of the most common invasive, Brassica nigra. Wick herbicide removed more non-natives and resulted in greater reproduction of natives, while hand-weeding and mowing increased native density. Our results point to the importance of considering competition among native functional groups as well as between natives and invasives in restoration. Interactions among functional groups, seeding methods, and maintenance techniques indicate restoration will be easier to implement when natives with different traits are planted separately. © 2013 Society for Ecological Restoration

Cost-effective ecological restoration

© 2015 Society for Ecological Restoration Ecological restoration is a multibillion dollar industry critical for improving degraded habitat. However, most restoration is conducted without clearly defined success measures or analysis of costs. Outcomes are influenced by environmental conditions that vary across space and time, yet such variation is rarely considered in restoration planning. Here, we present a cost-effectiveness analysis of terrestrial restoration methods to determine how practitioners may restore the highest native plant cover per dollar spent. We recorded costs of 120 distinct methods and described success in terms of native versus non-native plant germination, growth, cover, and density. We assessed effectiveness using a basic, commonly used metric (% native plant cover) and developed an index of cost-effectiveness (% native cover per dollar spent on restoration). We then evaluated success of multiple methods, given environmental variation across topography and multiple years, and found that the most successful method for restoring high native plant cover is often different from the method that results in the largest area restored per dollar expended, given fixed mitigation budgets. Based on our results, we developed decision-making trees to guide practitioners through established phases of restoration-site preparation, seeding and planting, and maintenance. We also highlight where additional research could inform restoration practice, such as improved seasonal weather forecasts optimizing allocation of funds in time or valuation practices that include costs of specific outcomes in the collection of in lieu fees

The economics of restoration

Macro-economic decisions determine the resources allocated at an international and a country-level to natural resource management. Micro-economic theory and tools are then used to ensure that this allocation will materialize into desired economic, environmental and societal outcomes. Restoration projects differ in their costs and benefits. The costs may entail operational costs, and those associated with alternative foregone opportunities. The benefits of restoration may reflect biodiversity outcomes or the provision of ecosystem goods and services, such as the supply of water and carbon sequestration. Restoration also has the potential to ensure supply of timber and non-timber forest products such as food and medicines, with potential significance for subsistence livelihoods. We synthesise approaches to valuing the costs and benefits of restoration projects in order to explore the economic consequences of restoration decisions and to prioritise investments. We finish the chapter by outlining economic incentives and policies that might support the implementation of restoration activities

Mathematical problem definition for ecological restoration planning

Ecological restoration is an increasingly important tool for managing and improving highly degraded or altered environments. Faced with a large number of sites or ecosystems to restore, and a diverse array of restoration approaches, investments in ecological restoration must be prioritized. Nevertheless, there are relatively few examples of the systematic prioritization of restoration actions. The development of a general theory for ecological restoration that is sufficiently sophisticated and robust to account for the inherent complexity of restoration planning, and yet is flexible and adaptable to ensure applicability to a diverse array of restoration problems is needed. In this paper we draw on principles from systematic conservation planning to explicitly formulate the ’restoration prioritization problem'. We develop a generalized theory for static and dynamic restoration planning problems, and illustrate how the basic problem formulation can be expanded to allow for many factors characteristic of restoration problems, including spatial dependencies, the possibility of restoration failure, and the choice of multiple restoration techniques. We illustrate the applicability of our generic problem definition by applying it to a case study - restoration prioritization on The Irvine Ranch Natural Landmark in Southern California. Through this case study we illustrate how the definition of the general restoration problem can be extended to account for the specific constraints and considerations of an on-the-ground restoration problem. © 2010 Elsevier B.V