Hay strewing, brush harvesting of seed and soil disturbance as tools for the enhancement of botanical diversity in grasslands

http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/186496/1/Cebrian%202019.pdf

Management priorities for marine invasive species.

Plans are currently being drafted for the next decade of action on biodiversity-both the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Biodiversity Strategy of the European Union (EU). Freshwater biodiversity is disproportionately threatened and underprioritized relative to the marine and terrestrial biota, despite supporting a richness of species and ecosystems with their own intrinsic value and providing multiple essential ecosystem services. Future policies and strategies must have a greater focus on the unique ecology of freshwater life and its multiple threats, and now is a critical time to reflect on how this may be achieved. We identify priority topics including environmental flows, water quality, invasive species, integrated water resources management, strategic conservation planning, and emerging technologies for freshwater ecosystem monitoring. We synthesize these topics with decades of first-hand experience and recent literature into 14 special recommendations for global freshwater biodiversity conservation based on the successes and setbacks of European policy, management, and research. Applying and following these recommendations will inform and enhance the ability of global and European post-2020 biodiversity agreements to halt and reverse the rapid global decline of freshwater biodiversity.

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/conl.12771

Safeguarding freshwater life beyond 2020 : recommendations for the new global biodiversity framework from the European experience

The number of non-native plant species established outside of cultivation in the New Zealand archipelago is higher than for any other islands worldwide. Faced with this scale of plant invasions, there has been considerable investment in the scientific and operational aspects of prevention, eradication and control. As a result, New Zealand is ideally placed to illustrate the many challenges that plant invasions present worldwide as well as the possible solutions. New Zealand has been at the forefront of biosecurity policy developments to tackle plant invasions being one of the first countries to: (a) implement national legislation to address the management of non-native plants; (b) establish a national permitted list (white-list) for plant imports; and (c) introduce bans on the sale, distribution, or propagation of non-native plant species. However, these preventative measure are only effective where there are also adequate border inspection regimes, compliance monitoring of the horticulture industry, and surveillance of internet trade. While New Zealand has successfully eradicated several non-native plant species from its territory, the small number of successes reflects the short-term, local and often uncoordinated efforts to manage non-native plants rather than national programmes backed by legislation and financed over several decades. New Zealand supports a world-leading biological control programme, but this has led to sustained, large-scale control for only a handful of species. In natural areas, most management attempts using mechanical or herbicide treatments have failed to achieve control and there has been a progressive reduction in the area, and frequency of these programmes over time. This is illustrative of the challenges facing those responsible for managing non-native plants in any region of the world. A general insight is that a shift in mindset is required that overcomes significant cognitive biases that include succumbing to the pressure to always intervene, underestimating the non-linear trajectories of invasions, failing to articulate the values at stake, and underestimating the time programmes require to succeed. Important lessons of global relevance include the need for managers to: (a) recognise when and where sleeper weeds are likely to become a national issue, especially as a result of climate change; (b) quantify impacts on those values that stakeholders most cherish rather than those that are easy to measure; (c) provide accurate estimates of the potential future extent of the invasion in the absence of management; and (d) identify clear indicators of successful progress over the course of a long-term management programme.

/pdf/plant-invasions-in-new-zealand-global-lessons-in-prevention-2mxkcr81qf.pdf

Plant invasions in New Zealand: global lessons in prevention, eradication and control

1. Declines in area and quality of species-rich mesotrophic and calcareous grasslands have occurred all across Europe. While the European Union has promoted schemes to restore these grasslands, the emphasis for management has remained largely focused on plants. Here we focus on restoration of the phytophagous beetles of these grasslands. Although local management, particularly that which promotes the establishment of host plants, is key to restoration success, dispersal limitation is also likely to be an important limiting factor during the restoration of phytophagous beetle assemblages.

2. Using a 3-year multi-site experiment, we investigated how restoration success of phytophagous beetles was affected by hay-spreading management (intended to introduce target plant species), success in restoration of the plant communities and the landscape context within which restoration was attempted.

3. Restoration success of the plants was greatest where green hay spreading had been used to introduce seeds into restoration sites. Beetle restoration success increased over time, although hay-spreading had no direct effect. However, restoration success of the beetles was positively correlated with restoration success of the plants.

4. Overall restoration success of the phytophagous beetles was positively correlated with the proportion of species-rich grassland in the landscape, as was the restoration success of the polyphagous beetles. Restoration success for beetles capable of flight and those showing oligophagous host plant specialism were also positively correlated with connectivity to species-rich grasslands. There was no indication that beetles not capable of flight showed greater dependence on landscape scale factors than flying species.

5.Synthesis and applications. Increasing the similarity of the plant community at restoration sites to target species-rich grasslands will promote restoration success for the phytophagous beetles. However, landscape context is also important, with restoration being approximately twice as successful in those landscapes containing high as opposed to low proportions of species-rich grassland. By targeting grassland restoration within landscapes containing high proportions of species-rich grassland, dispersal limitation problems associated with restoration for invertebrate assemblages are more likely to be overcome.

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01776.x

The role of management and landscape context in the restoration of grassland phytophagous beetles

Robust tools are needed to prioritise the management of invasive non-native species (INNS). Risk assessment is commonly used to prioritise INNS, but fails to take into account the feasibility of management. Risk management provides a structured evaluation of management options, but has received little attention to date. We present a risk management scheme to assess the feasibility of eradicating INNS that can be used, in conjunction with existing risk assessment schemes, to support prioritisation. The Non-Native Risk Management scheme (NNRM) can be applied to any predefined area and any taxa. It uses semi-quantitative response and confidence scores to assess seven key criteria: Effectiveness, Practicality, Cost, Impact, Acceptability, Window of opportunity and Likelihood of re-invasion. Scores are elicited using expert judgement, supported by available evidence, and consensus-building methods. We applied the NNRM to forty-one INNS that threaten Great Britain (GB). Thirty-three experts provided scores, with overall feasibility of eradication assessed as ‘very high’ (8 species), ‘high’ (6), ‘medium’ (8), ‘low’ (10) and ‘very low’ (9). The feasibility of eradicating terrestrial species was higher than aquatic species. Lotic freshwater and marine species scored particularly low. Combining risk management and existing risk assessment scores identified six established species as priorities for eradication. A further six species that are not yet established were identified as priorities for eradication on arrival as part of contingency planning. The NNRM is one of the first INNS risk management schemes that can be used with existing risk assessments to prioritise INNS eradication in any area.

/pdf/risk-management-to-prioritise-the-eradication-of-new-and-1rxtltu1xr.pdf

Risk management to prioritise the eradication of new and emerging invasive non-native species

Three experiments were undertaken to investigate the influence of seed mixture on the establishment of a target grassland community on a site with high available phosphorus. In the first experiment autumn- and spring-sown commercial seed mixtures were compared with seed harvested from a nature reserve with respect to their ability to produce an inundation grassland community similar to that described by the British National Vegetation Classification (NVC) as Agrostis stolonifera–Alopecurus geniculatus grassland (MG13). In the second experiment the composition and sowing rate of a commercial seed mixture were altered to investigate whether these factors were significant in the establishment of a sward similar to MG13. Similarly, in the third experiment the composition of a commercial seed mixture designed to achieve an alternative community, Cynosurus cristatus–Caltha palustris grassland (NVC code MG8), was sown. The vegetation resulting from each of these treatments was monitored with permanent quadrats for a 3-year period, and the hydrological regime of each quadrat location was modeled and quantified. The results showed that seed mixture, timing of sowing, and seeding rate had an initial effect on the vegetation that established. However, by the third year of monitoring there were no significant differences between these treatments, and hydrological regime had become the most important factor in determining the distribution of species. The vegetation was less diverse than predicted from germination tests and decreased in diversity over the monitoring period. It is suggested that this may be a result of the hydrological regime being unsuitable for several of the sown species or due to the extremely high available phosphorus concentration in the soil. This study highlights the need to understand the soil and hydrological conditions of a site before choosing a target community and designing a seed mixture.

Influence of Seed Mixture and Hydrological Regime on the Establishment of a Diverse Grassland Sward at a Site with High Phosphorus Availability

Legislation to control invasive alien species for nature conservation is a relatively new area. We examined: (1) whether prohibition of sale and release into the wild can stop dispersal of invasive...

What kind of legislation can contribute to on-site management?: Comparative case studies on legislative developments in managing aquatic invasive alien plants in France, England, and Japan

Richard Bullock

Papers

Risk management to prioritise the eradication of new and emerging invasive non-native species

Influence of Seed Mixture and Hydrological Regime on the Establishment of a Diverse Grassland Sward at a Site with High Phosphorus Availability

What kind of legislation can contribute to on-site management?: Comparative case studies on legislative developments in managing aquatic invasive alien plants in France, England, and Japan