- Author: Guy B Kyser
This article from the Sacramento Bee describes the impact of annual grass weeds on sites in the Great Basin, and argues that herbicides can play a role in salvaging the local ecosystem. Another entry in the category of "Ecology is complicated."
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Thanks to Jim Farrar for sharing the announcement below. There are talks on CHEATGRASS and VENTENATA on Feb. 26.
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SCIENCEx Invasive Species webinars
US Forest Service is hosting a week-long series of webinars on invasive pests: https://www.fs.fed.us/research/sciencex-webinars/
When: February 22-26, 2021 :: 12:30-1:30 Pacific / 1:30-2:30 Mountain / 2:30-3:30 Central / 3:30-4:30...
- Re-posted by: Gale Perez
From the Western IPM Center e-newsletter for Feb. 2020
New Risk Assessments Just Posted for Invasive Weeds
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently posted Weed Risk Assessments for a dozen new weeds of concern.
Eleven of the 12 are already documented in the West.
The purpose of the assessments is to evaluate the...
- Author: Travis M Bean
New research published in PNAS (Fusco et al 2019) highlights the role of invasive grasses in creating new wildfire regimes at not just local but regional scales. Weed scientists are familiar with the concept of the grass-fire cycle (D'Antonio and Vitousek 1992): exotic grass invasions promote hotter or more frequent fires, which in turn facilitates more extensive grass invasion, causing more fires, etc. Perhaps now is the right time to better educate non-scientists about this critical concept as wildfires take up more of the public's...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
- Re-posted by: Gale Perez
When wildfires burn in California, people often call them forest fires or brushfires, but the odds are high that an invasive weed is an unrecognized fuels component, says a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources scientist.
“We have all of the nasty non-native Bromus species here in California, and these weeds are key drivers of increasing fire frequency,” said Travis Bean, UC Cooperative Extension weed science specialist based at UC Riverside.
The invasive, non-native Bromus species aggressively outcompete native plants, forming dense stands that grow fast and dry out quickly, becoming highly flammable. Fire can move...
