Eradicating Invasive Plants: Hard-won Lessons for Islands
نویسندگان
چکیده
The record of eradicating invasive plants, whether on islands or continents, consists of few clear victories, some stalemates, and many defeats. Instructive, if hard-won, lessons have nevertheless been learned. (1) The ideal eradication campaign would see all individuals of a potentially-invasive species destroyed immediately upon their arrival. Few immigrants meet this fate; more usually there is a failure to act until damage has been inflicted by the invader. (2) Failing the destruction of all immigrants upon their entry, maximum effort should be lodged against the immigrants’ small, isolated foci. As with (1), implementing this sound advice has often proven difficult. However, the radical reduction of the range of Striga asiatica in North Carolina (USA) represents the clearest sustained application of this principle. (3) Eradication or even effective control of invasive species requires repeatedly surveying the same area for surviving plants. Virtual eradication of Schinus terebinthifolius and other invasive species on tiny islands in Bermuda has clearly succeeded through such diligence. (4) Control or even eradication of a single invasive species may ultimately produce little benefit, if its demise only sparks the rise of another non-indigenous species (e.g., the role reversals of invasive aquatic macrophytes in southern Florida, following biological control). Islands, with their intrinsic borders and geographic isolation, provide excellent locations for experimentation within which these lessons can be honed, thereby identifying both the effective and ineffective components of any eradication effort.
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