Abstract
Key Findings
- Invasive plants continue to escape into and spread through southern forests to eventually form exclusive infestations, and replace native communities to the detriment of forest productivity, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human use potential.
- Over a 300-year period, invasive plants have been increasingly imported into the South, despite public policies and warnings by professional ecologists and plant experts of long-term irreversible ecosystem damage.
- The invasion process is accelerated by greater forest disturbance, fragmentation, parcelization, and urbanization needed to accommodate and support an increasing population and is being accelerated by climate warming. Approximately 9 percent of southern forests or about 19 million acres are currently occupied by one or more of the 300 invasive plants in the region.
- The annual spread of invasive plants in southern forests is conservatively estimated at a 145,000 forested acres; accelerated by a warming climate and by increasing numbers of forest disturbances that accommodate and support growing human populations.
- Given the current occupation and spread of invasive plants and the increasingly common infestations by multiple species, eradication appears only probable on specific lands unless awareness and strategic programs are greatly enhanced.
- Over a 20 year period, research has developed effective control treatments and integrated approaches that can eradicate or replace invasive plants, while a more robust, coordinated, and focused effort will be required to stem and turn the tide of invasion.
- Model projections show high-threat invasive plants have not reached their potential range or density limits within the region under current conditions. A predicted warming climate will permit northward range extensions for some, while range extensions can be restricted by a simultaneous drier climate. Losses in forest production, recreation, and wildlife habitat would have quality-of-life implications for future generations that would continue to be exacerbated if not mitigated.
- Increased occupation by invasive plants would diminish the variety and abundance of current wood-based products from the “wood basket” of the United States. Some invasive species may find use in biomass and composite products if harvesting and processing become more efficient.
- Most plants escaping into southern forests have been imported, hybridized, sold, and planted for yard and garden beautification, soil stabilization, wildlife habitat enhancement, and livestock production.
- Stricter controls for importing species are pending, but their effectiveness will be hampered as long as garden centers continue to market invasive plants as ornamentals.
- Limiting the degree of occupation and impact depends on the development of adaptive management programs and actions that are coordinated across political boundaries and engage all ownerships. Piecemeal and splintered actions by agencies and ownerships, if continued, cannot dwarf the destructive impacts of this invasion.
- Public awareness campaigns, cooperative spread abatement networks, collaborative programs of detection and eradication, dedicated research and extension programs, and employment of new land restoration options have been found to slow the spread of invasive plants and prevent them from destroying critical habitats.
Parent Publication
Citation
Miller, James H.; Lemke, Dawn; Coulston, John. 2013. The invasion of southern forests by nonnative plants: current and future occupation, with impacts, management strategies, and mitigation approaches. In: Wear, David N.; Greis, John G., eds. 2013. The Southern Forest Futures Project: technical report. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-GTR-178. Asheville, NC: USDA-Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 397-456.
