Tracking Invasive Species with Pennsylvania iMapInvasives

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Note from Amy Jewitt, Invasive Species Coordinator at the  Western Pennsylvania Conservancy  and the  Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program 

Dear Readers: The Pennsylvania iMapInvasives Program is pleased to bring you this latest edition of our newsletter! The goal of this publication is to tell the stories of the many hardworking and dedicated people across Pennsylvania conducting specific projects aimed at better understanding and controlling invasive species in our state and the surrounding region.

In this edition, encouraging words are provided by Jim Zoschg of the Cameron County Conservation District. Also, eight authors share their unique stories on a variety of topics, with our featured story discussing how Pennsylvania state parks and northeastern national parks prioritize invasive species management. Additional stories are provided that discuss community science apps used by educators, invasive ornamental plants, and the importance of photography when documenting invasive species findings. Also, biochar is dicussed as a potential tool in invasive plant treatments, and researchers at Temple University discuss their findings of the connections between invasive plants and tick-borne diseases.

Happy reading!

Note: If you have questions or comments concerning any of the stories highlighted in our newsletter, please email the story's author(s) by clicking on the button(s) at the end of the respective article you are interested in.

Creeping Water-Primrose (Ludwigia peploides)

Sourced from the  Mid-Atlantic Field Guide to Aquatic Invasive Species  (pages 20-21)

Story written by Art Gover, Proprietor of Fruittown Land Stewardship Services, and Stephanie Perles, Vegetation Ecologist with the  National Park Service 

Starting with a Nature Conservancy template and modifying it over 14 years of use, Pennsylvania state parks and national parks in the northeastern U.S. have implemented Invasive Species Management Plans that optimize finite resources. Using currently available information, priority is placed on protecting the most intact plant communities, engaging work that releases an existing native plant population, choosing operations that address as many target species as possible, and building in-house capacity to expand the work.

If you are tasked with ongoing management of native plant communities on a property, you are acutely aware that you do not have the time to conduct all the operations you wish. One task you almost certainly have is trying to reduce the impact of exotic, aggressive (invasive) plant species in native plant communities.

Plant communities with invasive species change over time by increasing the ratio of exotic vs. native plants and reducing the abundance and diversity of native plants. This will happen on multiple time scales. Invasive annual species will displace native annuals and other short-lived herbaceous species quickly. Longer term impacts include reducing forest regeneration and forest canopy composition. For example,  Japanese stiltgrass , an exotic shrub layer, and an abundant population of white-tailed deer won't push a mature oak out of the forest, but they will prevent the next generation of oaks from starting and ensure that when mature natives die and create canopy openings, exotic species will fill the new gap.

There are more weeds than you can possibly manage, so where to begin? Here are a few concepts help clarify the process.

• Triage is necessary. Some plant communities are more deserving of your effort than others. Accept that there may be areas you do not address.
• Define managing exotic plants as "releasing native plants", rather than "killing invasives".
• It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but work from good to bad. Invest your finite effort to maintain relatively intact areas and improve moderately impacted sites. See the point above - the end game is to release natives, not remove invasives. Removing invasives from an area of all invasives leaves you with..., what?
• Management is perpetual (sorry, true). Your goal is to transition from a high-effort "control phase" to a manageable "maintenance phase" for each project. If you envision your work resources as a pie, and projects as a slice, the beginning of a project may be a big slice of your current resources. Over time that project (slice) takes less time. You want your resource pie to consist of many thin slices, rather than a few big slices. This is particularly critical if your resource pie is not getting bigger.

In 2007, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Bureau of State Parks and The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) began a project to increase management of invasive species in parks by engaging and training staff at participating parks to do field work. To direct the effort, the park needed a plan. To develop a plan, we needed a template. Fortunately, that had already been done by The Nature Conservancy's Wildland Invasive Species Program. We adopted their  Site Weed Management Plan Template , developed by Mandy Tu and Barry Meyers-Rice. This approach prioritizes action based on the interaction of site and weed species. After 14 years of use by the DCNR and PSU, we revised the template several times, but its resemblance to the original is clear.

In our approach, we used available information to develop a Prioritization Score for sites and species generated through five index values, which create the 0 to 10 prioritization score. The available information can include:

• Biodiversity information described in Natural Heritage Areas sourced from the  Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program. 
• Rare species habitat recorded in the  Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory  database.
• Park resource management plans.
• Staff and volunteer knowledge of a particular park.

A score of "10" is "get out of there right now", and "0" means an invasive species of interest is not present and not posing an imminent risk to that management unit. With the priorities established, a prescription is developed, and finally a calendar to do the work, based on the priority and how the target plant growth affects the best time to conduct the work.

Two of the five index values in the prioritization process address the land management unit and account for 4 of the 10 total points (Table 1). The remaining indices and points characterize the individual invasive plant species and their interaction with that land unit (Table 2).

We start the prioritization process by identifying non-habitat areas in the park such as parking lots, lawn areas, heavy day-use areas, or maintenance areas to eliminate them from the process. The management areas are delineated, choosing areas that can be identified as having a dominant plant community or habitat type, and a size that allows operations to be completed. Management units are called "Habitat Management Zones" or HMZ. Having a few large HMZ are desirable for a simplified plan. However, having smaller HMZ, in which management actions can be feasibly completed, is helpful for tracking progress in each unit. An optimal HMZ size reduces the number of units to track while allowing work to be completed in the entire unit.

HMZ are then assigned a community type, and a score for Stewardship Value (0 to 2) and Outreach Value (0 to 2) (Table 1). On public lands, the Outreach Value is useful to distinguish between similarily intact tracts. Despite being a very coarse delineation, the community type influences the impact of the invasive species.

The seven community types are:

• Mature forest
• Pole forest
• Young forest
• Riparian corridors
• Lakeshores
• Wetlands
• Herbaceous openings

The next phase is to identify and characterize the invasive species. This can be done by conducting field surveys and referencing existing invasive species location data from a trusted source like iMapInvasives. For our purposes, we base our selection on DCNR's  Invasive Plant Species List . To streamline the plan, our approach provides simple categories to reduce the effort to develop the plan.

For example, if you have eight invasive shrub species, you can generate a prioritization for "exotic shrubs" and do one-eighth the work to generate a prioritization (see Sidebar 1 - "Bundling"). Other growth forms we consider bundling include exotic biennials (e.g., garlic mustard, poison hemlock, musk thistle, etc.) and woody vines (e.g., Oriental bittersweet, exotic wisterias, porcelainberry, kudzu, etc.).

Once the species list is developed, the characterization of each species includes three indices - Extent (0-2), Impact (0-1), and Restoration Effort (0-3) (Table 2). For Extent, the high score is for less invasion (remember, release not removal). Impact is a bonus point awarded to species that will really thrive in that location. Restoration Effort considers the amount and duration of work to create a native-dominated community. This index considers the behavior of the invasive species and its Extent. An early infestation of even a difficult-to-control species will give way to a native community much more readily than a well-established infestation.

The final step before the Prioritization Value is generated is a presence/absence score of 0 or 1 multiplied by the additive score of the other indices. If you assign a 0, the overall value is 0 and the species falls out of consideration. If you assign 1, the added score does not change. An advantage of this extra step is at least twofold. First, the species list was for the entire property, but each species may not be in or threaten all your management zones. Second, even if a species is not present in a management unit, you may wish to explicitly address it in your plan by having a survey program in place. Figure 1 shows an example of a Prioritization Index generated for  Ohiopyle State Park . Color coding is included to draw attention to the highest priorities.

Review of Figure 1 may leave the impression that there are many management units with the same priority level. That is true. Now the site manager needs to apply other criteria to distinguish between similar operations. This may seem like little advantage was gained. Not so. The park engaged in a methodical evaluation of its impacted natural resources and operational resources and produced a finite work list for a 20,000-acre facility. The process provides the documentation to justify devoting resources and has reduced the decision to a manageable number of sites.

With the priority areas and species identified, the next steps are prescription, then implementation. Hearkening back to the Bundling approach, a high priority score for a species in an HMZ does not really refer to just that species. Rather, the presence of a species confirms that work in a particular HMZ is a high priority. You're not going to go to the trouble of mobilizing a crew to only treat one species and walk by others. The goal is to treat all detectable targets, and time the operation and technique to maximize targeting opportunities.

Which leads to a fundamental aspect of this approach - species identification. For this to work, the operational personnel must be able to, for example, distinguish an  Amur honeysuckle  (invasive) from a  silky dogwood  (native). Those engaged to do this work need to be taught how to identify target species, for at least two reasons. First, you can't release natives if you can't tell them from the exotics. Second, when staff become versed in species identification, they become the survey team.

In the state park setting, the majority of folks recruited into invasive species management are maintenance staff. If they learn to distinguish the invasive species, they become scouts as they conduct their myriad duties throughout the year and provide ongoing additional information to update the plan. Therefore, the most critical aspect of our training on workdays was target identification, in addition to the operational specifics for the day.

Like many protected areas in Pennsylvania, national park units in the eastern United States face the monumental challenge of protecting their natural resources by treating invasive plants.  Recent research  from the National Park Service  Inventory and Monitoring Division  found that invasive plants are increasing in 80% of the eastern parks studied. Managing invasive plants can seem so overwhelming that park staff are tempted to give up because it seems like an endless and insurmountable drain on staff time and park budgets.

But over the past few years, parks have begun to use the Habitat and Invasive Plant Management Tool to prioritize their invasive plant treatment. The tool helped identify the highest priority places and species within each park so that parks could use their limited resources effectively.

At  Minute Man National Historical Park  in Massachusetts, the Habitat and Invasive Plant Management Plan shifted their focus to riparian areas where invasive species are likely to spread through the waterways to other parts of the park and surrounding properties, if left untreated. "The tool is not only helping us decide where to work, it also helped us decide where NOT to work," resource manager Margie Coffin Brown explained. "The tool helped us realize that we were spending a lot of time at a roadside area that was not one of our highest priorities. The plan helped us refine our approach and improve our efficiency."

Park natural resource managers brought together experts from the National Park Service's  Inventory and Monitoring Division  and  Invasive Plant Management Teams  (IPMTs) to collaborate on creating strategic treatment plans. This collaboration was vital since it brought together existing invasive plant abundance data, expertise on invasive plant treatment, and park knowledge to identify the most ecologically and culturally important areas of the park.

The excel spreadsheet (described above in the "Plan Details" section) guides park staff through the prioritization process, but the real power of this tool is creating a forum for collaboration. The tool brings the right people together and leads them to ask the right questions to direct park resources toward areas where it's most important to manage invasives.

Resource manager Kristen Allen at  Richmond National Battlefield Park  in Virginia described their planning process like this: "We put our heads together and used the data we had to prioritize important areas, which is what we were lacking before. You tend to treat the areas you see, but just because you can't see it from the trail doesn't mean it's not a priority."

The specific treatment prescriptions generated by the tool give details on where, when, and how the treatments should be conducted. This allows park managers to easily match available workers with needed tasks year-round. Park managers can direct volunteers, park staff, interns, and others to high priority sites to do work matched with their level of skills and training. "Once our biotech had the plan, he could just jump in and start treating some of the top priorities," said Allen. "Everything was right in place - from which tools and herbicides to order, to where in the park to go."

Using mobile mapping platforms, parks can take their treatment plans practically anywhere. The  Eastern Rivers and Mountains Inventory and Monitoring Network  built a digital map for the  National Parks of Western Pennsylvania  so that park staff can access information about priority treatments and invasive species locations when working outside.

The invasive species management plan can also help ensure the park's management priorities remain in effect during staff transitions. For new seasonal staff, the strategy can be incorporated into orientation and training, showing them how their work fits into protecting park resources.

Once Minute Man's treatment plan was completed, Brown realized, "We now have a real communication tool to talk with our collaborators and convey to them our set of priorities. We have shared our plan with National Park Service staff, partner parks, adjacent landowners, and surrounding towns who have robust invasive plant management programs. It gives our invasive plant management program a higher level of credibility and more leverage. The plan has improved our conversations about where we are working and why."

Having a strategy also helps demonstrate to other Park Service divisions that invasive plant management is critical to protecting park resources. "We need to do a better job of convincing people that invasive plant management is important, and that when we focus on our priority areas, we can make a difference," added Brown.

A strategic invasive plant management plan gives park-focused priorities and technical details to implement it. By focusing on the most ecologically and culturally important areas in the park and prescribing treatments that are attainable, this process helps parks achieve wins that protect their special places.

Note: Portions of this article were adapted from a longer article titled " Triaging Invasive Plants: Strategic Planning Drives Success " in Park Science, published in Winter 2021.

Art Gover retired in 2021 from The Pennsylvania State University after working 35 years conducting research, outreach, and training in vegetation management in non-crop areas, collaborating the last 14 years with DCNR's Bureau of State Parks to develop and implement invasive species management plans.

He has been the proprietor of Fruittown Land Stewardship Services since 2008, providing application, planning, and training for vegetation management and restoration in wildland settings.

Stephanie Perles studies how forests in national parks are changing so that park managers can protect healthy, resilient forests. As the Plant Ecologist for the  Eastern Rivers and Mountains Inventory and Monitoring Network  of the National Park Service, she helps parks deal with invasive species, forest pests, and deer browse, and aids parks in learning how prescribed fire can sustain oak forests.

Stephanie's favorite pastime is writing haiku on long hikes or drives, though she notes her masterpieces have room for improvement, according to her family.

Story written by Keely Tolley Roen, Associate Teaching Professor of Wildlife Technology at  Penn State DuBois 

Keely discusses how community science and invasive species management are two important components of the Penn State DuBois Wildlife Technology Program curriculum. However, with COVID lockdowns and the sudden shift to remote learning, iMapInvasives and similar community science applications became a vital thread connecting learning in the classroom to learning at home. As the world has begun to return to normal, using iMapInvasives in the classroom is here to stay.

"Can everyone see my screen? Oh Jessie, you're muted." Two years after COVID-19 caused the world, and education, to change fundamentally, these phrases have become a part of the lexicon in our offices, homes, and classrooms. In the lighter moments, they have been immortalized in memes on social media and on coffee mugs. However, in March 2020, the uncertainty and concerns over health and safety forced Penn State, and universities around the world, to adopt a sudden shift to virtual learning. This was difficult for all educators, but particularly challenging to those in natural resources.

The  Penn State DuBois Campus  is home to an associate degree program in Wildlife Technology. This technical program is known for hands-on experiences and field training in wildlife and forestry and is the only accredited two-year program of its kind in the Commonwealth. Many students also complete a four-year degree in an environmental field and we pride ourselves on giving them a solid foundation through long experiential labs and high student-faculty contact.

Our program needed to adapt to the remote transition by developing a series of field experiences and remote labs that could be completed at home. The same question was on all of our minds. How in the world are we going to teach this online?

It turns out the answer, in part, was community science and natural resource applications. We had long participated in community science prior to COVID-19, whether it be tagging monarch butterflies or participating in the  Christmas Bird Count . As accessible computer and smartphone applications were developed for many of these efforts, we integrated these into our curriculum as well. We had trained students in  eBird ,  PARS  (Pennsylvania Amphibian and Reptile Survey),  iNaturalist , and more. Using these apps was quickly becoming an expectation for any natural resource professional and students reported that once they learned one or two, the learning curve for additional ones was reduced.

Second-year wildlife student Haeden Allbeck spoke about how these apps prepared her for an internship. "I completed an internship in summer 2021 through Penn State and with biologists from Fort Indiantown Gap. Through my coursework, I learned how to use apps like iMapInvasives. The training with these apps assisted me greatly with my internship because I had to use apps like these created specifically for my internship to collect data."

Wildlife Technology students learn quickly that invasive species management is a constant battle in natural resources. They work to remove  Japanese honeysuckle  on campus in one class and learn how to identify  spotted lanternflies  in another. A recent presenter discussed  feral pig  management while another outlined their difficulty controlling  Japanese knotweed .

Students are introduced to the classic 1988 comedic documentary  Cane Toads: An Unnatural History  and are required to develop interactive activities about invasive species for elementary school students. From Wetlands and Fisheries Management to Dendrology and Environmental Law and Policy, few themes weave through all of our courses quite like invasive species.

Therefore, when I met Amy Jewitt (PA iMapInvasives Coordinator) at a conference in February 2019, I knew immediately I wanted to integrate the iMapInvasives program into my classroom. I attended the iMapInvasives online webinar  Invasives Near You: Mapping Your Local Natural Area  soon after. By fall 2019, all students were trained on how to use iMapInvasives and could earn bonus points by making an account and submitting their own records.

It is no surprise that applications like iMapInvasives became a significant portion of our remote lab delivery. We were able to meet our learning objectives while simultaneously making the learning and data collection more personal - students weren't collecting or searching for data around campus, they were doing this at home. Students could immediately apply their learning - they were frequently excited to submit their own records and without fail, even before COVID-19, students would immediately look up locations in their hometown or species they were interested in.

Perhaps best of all, students didn't report feeling as if they lost learning opportunities like many did during the sudden shift to remote learning. Much of the training material was already provided in the form of webinars and videos, so we were able to quickly develop companion worksheets for these and devise supplemental activities which demonstrated their use of the apps. I am happy to share these resources with other educators.

Second-year wildlife student Karter Witmer said, "Using phone apps and community science surveys have been some of my favorite experiences and I look forward to utilizing community science data in future employment and learning about new community science apps!"

One of his classmates, Darien Ehrensberger, echoed his enthusiasm. "These apps have helped me keep track of data out in the field. I have been able to write species lists for a habitat management plan, create maps indicating where species are located, and identify species never encountered before. The uses of these apps are endless and an amazing way to get everyone involved."

On a chilly morning this April, while checking coverboards to survey for snakes and small mammals, students in the morning lab of the Wildlife Techniques course discovered something unusual in a wetland adjacent to campus. Due to recent viral posts about the invasive hammerhead worm, many in the group correctly identified the flatworm which was later confirmed to be a planarian of the  Bipalium  genus. Despite never being seen there before, multiple specimens were collected. We hoped they had been flushed from their underground burrows due to the recent rains and were not spreading quickly from a recent invasion.

The wetland is home to countless species and the site of many Penn State DuBois educational efforts including bird banding, reptile, amphibian and small mammal surveys, and wetland and woody plant identification. Students were very nervous about the ecosystem implications of yet another invader.

When identification of the flatworm was confirmed, a group of my students excitedly asked, "Did you submit it to iMapInvasives yet?"

I could not have been prouder.

Keely Tolley Roen is an Associate Teaching Professor at Penn State DuBois. She is the Program Coordinator for the Wildlife Technology Program where she has taught since 2001. Keely earned a BA in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania and a MS in Ecology from Penn State. She has served on the Board of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Wildlife Society, the Pennsylvania Mammal Technical Committee, and the  Keystone Elk Country Alliance  Education Committee.

Before joining Penn State, Keely worked in the field, laboratory, and administrative side of natural resource management as an environmental consultant, a laboratory technician, and as a data specialist for the National Park Service. Her primary research interests involve feeding behavior, but her job allows for smaller undergraduate-focused research projects in any area of natural resources from bush honeysuckle impact on snake distribution to black bear damage to corn crops.

Keely spends almost every non-working moment playing with her three sons, kayaking, hiking, playing board games, and watching scary movies.

Story written by Evelyn Beaury, Postdoctoral Research Associate with the  High Meadows Environmental Institute  at Princeton University

In the United States, more than half of our invasive plants are being marketed as ornamentals despite their negative impacts to agricultural systems and natural areas. Federal and state regulations have reduced or eliminated the sale of some species, but are extremely inconsistent across states in terms of what is regulated and how the regulations are applied. These rules are also rarely used as a tool for prevention. We need more consistency across management and policy efforts and more proactive measures to reduce the spread of invasive plants.

Note: Numbers shown in brackets indicate references utilized by the author. All references are cited at the end of the story.

Across the globe, native ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of global change. One of the best chances we have for protecting biodiversity is by reducing the deliberate introduction of invasive species. Recent research has found that the majority of invasive species introductions are intentional [1,2] with the most common pathway being the import and distribution of non-native horticultural plants that escape cultivation. In the United States alone, more than half of our invasive plants are being marketed for ornamental purposes despite their negative impacts to agricultural systems and natural areas [3]. This disconnect perpetuates harm to native ecosystems that are already facing stressors such as habitat loss and climate change.

Despite the now well-documented potential for non-native horticultural plants to become invasive, live plant imports to the U.S. have steadily increased in the past few decades with little to no increase in measures that reduce invasion risk [4]. One of the few policy mechanisms that exist to reduce the spread of invasive plants in the U.S. are state regulatory lists that prohibit the intentional movement of listed plants. However, these lists are incredibly inconsistent across states in terms of the species that are regulated, how the regulations are updated and enforced, and how proactive lists are in trying to prevent the introduction of new invasive plants (in addition to managing existing infestations). For example, states in the U.S. share <20% of their regulated plants with adjacent states, even in regions with similar climates and management concerns [5].

The following images show examples of ornamental plant imports that have become invasive in the United States and the natural areas they can impact.

An unfortunate consequence of these disparities is that many ornamental invasive plants are easily - and legally - spread across state borders via the horticultural trade [3]. Our work found that 47 of the lower 48 United States had a prohibited invasive species sold by a nursery in a neighboring state. We found that regulations were generally effective at reducing within-state regulated species, but across the U.S., 343 of 688 prohibited plants are still spread as ornamental, including 20 federally regulated noxious weeds and 25 of Pennsylvania's prohibited species.

These issues are only becoming more pressing with climate change. Many ornamental invasive plants are imported from warmer climates [6] and are shifting range into new areas that are becoming more suitable for invasion as the climate changes. In other words, warm-adapted invasive plants may be:

1. Increasing population densities where they already exist and climates are becoming more suitable ( sleeper species ).
2. Shifting their ranges to invade new areas [7].

Invasive plants may therefore have an advantage over our native species under climate change, particularly if horticultural trade already expands their climatic niche [8] and facilitates their expansion at a faster rate than they would be able to naturally migrate. These issues call for a shift in invasive species policy and management to be more forward-thinking.

Luckily, we already have tools to inform proactive decision-making. Existing research has identified which invasive plants in the U.S. are  shifting range  to new areas [7], providing state-by-state targets for proactively learning about and regulating invaders before they arrive to new regions. While regulatory action may be difficult to implement on a short timescale, now is the time to spread awareness about new invaders, particularly with stakeholders involved in plant trade.

In the northeast U.S., we have taken several approaches to increasing regional consistency across state efforts and building capacity for preventing the introduction of new ornamental invasives. Ongoing projects include:

• Collating a regional prohibited plant list to serve as a resource for horticulture, policymakers, and management entities.
• Creating a guide to  climate-smart gardening  to reduce invasion risk and facilitate the persistence of native biodiversity.
• Spreading awareness about range-shifting ornamental invasive plants that we need to avoid introducing through regional horticultural trade.

Other efforts and outreach materials can be found online at  https://www.risccnetwork.org/  including resources for how invasions and climate change are interacting and why gardening with native plants provides more ecosystem services than non-native plants. While these efforts take time and buy-in from partners, they have generated productive and positive conversations among stakeholders about how to prevent the next wave of plant invasions. More research is needed to understand the interactions between horticulture, invasions, and climate change, but there is a lot of potential for existing resources to help us limit the spread of invasions and protect our native ecosystems.

1. Ni, Ming, and David C. Deane. "Annual first record rate of naturalised non-native plants in China driven by intentional introductions." Biological Invasions (2021): 1-4.   https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-021-02676-4 
2. Lehan, N. E., Murphy, J. R., Thorburn, L. P., & Bradley, B. A. (2013). Accidental introductions are an important source of invasive plants in the continental United States. American journal of botany, 100(7), 1287-1293.  https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3732/ajb.1300061 
3. Beaury, E. M., Patrick, M., & Bradley, B. A. (2021). Invaders for sale: the ongoing spread of invasive species by the plant trade industry. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 19(10), 550-556.  https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2392 
4. McCullough, Deborah G., Timothy T. Work, Joseph F. Cavey, Andrew M. Liebhold, and David Marshall. "Interceptions of nonindigenous plant pests at US ports of entry and border crossings over a 17-year period." Biological invasions 8, no. 4 (2006): 611-630.  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-005-1798-4 
5. Beaury, Evelyn M., Emily J. Fusco, Jenica M. Allen, and Bethany A. Bradley. "Plant regulatory lists in the United States are reactive and inconsistent." Journal of Applied Ecology 58, no. 9 (2021): 1957-1966.  https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13934 
6. Bradley, Bethany A., Dana M. Blumenthal, Regan Early, Edwin D. Grosholz, Joshua J. Lawler, Luke P. Miller, Cascade JB Sorte et al. "Global change, global trade, and the next wave of plant invasions." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10, no. 1 (2012): 20-28.  https://doi.org/10.1890/110145 
7. Allen, Jenica M., and Bethany A. Bradley. "Out of the weeds? Reduced plant invasion risk with climate change in the continental United States." Biological Conservation 203 (2016): 306-312.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.09.015 
8. Sax, Dov F., Regan Early, and Jesse Bellemare. "Niche syndromes, species extinction risks, and management under climate change." Trends in ecology & evolution 28, no. 9 (2013): 517-523.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2013.05.010 

Evelyn (Eve) Beaury is a central Pennsylvania native but has lived in Colorado, Massachusetts, and now New Jersey. She recently received her PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she focused on the spatial ecology and biogeography of invasive plant presence, abundance, and impacts. Her work included research on the spread of ornamental invasive plants and the policy measures needed to limit future introductions.

Eve is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the  High Meadows Environmental Institute  at Princeton University. There she has transitioned to spatial mapping of land-based climate mitigation strategies and their impacts on biodiversity. She hopes to continue working on stakeholder-driven research projects throughout her career. More information about Eve and her work can be found at  https://ebeaury.wixsite.com/evelynbeaury .

Story written by Amy Jewitt, Invasive Species Coordinator at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program

Photographs are a key component of invasive species sightings submitted to iMapInvasives. Not only do they allow experts to confirm a sighting, but they also provide visual evidence of a plant or animal's presence at a particular location. Photos that capture a species' distinguishing characteristics are helpful for quality control purposes and demonstrate an observer's keen understanding of how to identify a species from potential look-alikes.

Finally, spring is here! The trees, shrubs, and flowers are leafing out and blooming and the world is green and vibrant once again. This time of year marks a renewal of the earth, when our flora takes center stage and we are greeted with the sights and smells of nature remerging after a long winter's hibernation.

On a Saturday morning in May, I spent some time hiking the trail at Glade Run Lake, a local park near my home in western Pennsylvania. The 3-mile loop trail meanders through a forest of towering decidious and evergreen trees, shrubs and ferns, and other ground-dwelling plants. As I walked along the well-worn path, I felt excited and privileged to be part of this uniquely beautiful place.

On this day, a representative from  Tree Pittsburgh , Joe Stavish, was leading a "Tree Identification Walk and Talk" event, and I along with about 25 others were amazed to learn several new and interesting facts about the trees that inhabit the park. We learned how to identify species including hemlock, dogwood, black cherry, oak, hawthorn, and hickory, which are just a sampling of the native trees indigenous to this landscape. After the day's educational event, I appreciate these trees' presence here at the lake even more, knowing the environmental benefits they provide and the fact that some have been here for well over 100 years.

As I walk along the trail and among the park's myriad of plant life, I can't help but notice several invasive plant inhabitants that have also emerged alongside the trees I've come to learn about. Species like  garlic mustard ,  mulitflora rose ,  privet , and  bush honeysuckle  are all too prevalent along the trail's edge, and for those with an eye to pick out these undesirable species, it's distressing to see their bounty amongst the native plant life.

Though these and other invasive plants add to the lush greenery at the park, I am all too familiar with the fact that their presence here is harmful to the health and well-being of the local ecosystem. In this way, Glade Run Lake is not unlike many other parks and natural areas across the Commonwealth where invasive species present themselves as a plague, harming the natural balance that nature intended for these special places. Documentation of the presence and quantity of invasive species in natural areas such as Glade Run Lake is critical to planning for the park's future management.

In Pennsylvania, the iMapInvasives program provides a tool used by many natural resource professionals for purposes of understanding the distribution of invasive species at particular locations as well as species distributions statewide. Information provided in this publicly-available clearinghouse informs what "battles" should be chosen in terms of the invasive species to tackle in areas prioritized for reviving native plant communities. For example, an area like Glade Run Lake, which is prized not only for its recreational opportunities including fishing, boating, and hiking, but also its bird life, is a place where management is warranted to ensure it continues to provide the food and habitat resources needed by its diversity of resident and migrating wildlife.

When submitting an invasive species record to iMapInvasives, it's critical that proper photo documentation is included. In short, this means at least one photo is taken of the invasive plant or animal observed. Photos should include a species' distinguishing characteristics which determine its identification and tell it apart from similar look-alike species.

For example, when identifying multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), one characteristic to look for is a uniquely fringed base, or stipule, present where the plant's pinnately compound leaves connect to the plant stem. The following  fact sheet  from Penn State Extension provides additional distinguishing characteristics to look for when identifying multiflora rose.

Another species present at Glade Run Lake, such as privet (Ligustrum spp.), can be identified by looking for opposite pairs of small, smooth-edged, oval-shaped leaves (1-3 inches long). Privets have a well-defined midvein and the rest of the leaf veins are much less conspicuous. This shrub generally grows 1-3 meters tall and often has a chaotic appearance with its many thin branches and twigs. When present, the terminal clusters of many small white flowers, and the dark blue to black berries that replace them, are key features of this plant. Refer to the following  fact sheet  from DCNR for more information on identifying privets.

All information submitted to iMapInvasives is expert-vetted to ensure trustworthy management decisions are made by those using its information and working on-the-ground at sites where native flora are being outcompeted. Good photographs submitted along with observation details are critical information that allow data in iMapInvasives to be quality-checked by a species expert.

When photos are fuzzy, blurred, or taken from a distance, this can dramatically impact the ability for an expert to quality-check a species sighting. In some cases, additional and higher quality photos are needed from the observer, which means a revisit to the original observation location. Other times, if a return visit cannot occur, a record may need to be removed from the database, resulting in a missed opportunity for refining our understanding of a species' abundance and distribution.

When taking photographs for purposes of invasive species documentation in iMapInvasives, keep in mind the following tips:

• Get up close with the plant or animal you're observing. This may be tricky for animals, so do your best and use your camera's zoom. For plants, you should be within arm's reach of your target.
• Avoid taking a blurry photo by staying as still as possible.
• Take a few photos and save them to your camera's gallery. Choose the best ones to include with your observation record.
• Keep in mind a species' identifying characteristics and take photos that focus on these key features. Consult online field guides and fact sheets from  Penn State Extension ,  DCNR , and  PA Sea Grant  to learn what a particular species' distinguishing characteristics are.

As someone that helps perform quality checks on records submitted to iMapInvasives, I am always appreciative of the people that take excellent photographs as part of their observation submittals. Not only do good images make my job easier, but these photos are then made viewable to other users of the database and can be used as a teaching tool for someone who may not know what a particular plant or animal looks like.

The rewards are many when good photograpy skills and a focus on species' distinguishing characteristics are prioritized for submittal of invasive species findings to iMapInvasives. So, the next time you're out enjoying a walk in your local natural area and spot an invasive species you'd like to document in iMapInvasives, be sure to remember the above-mentioned tips and do your homework ahead of time, or in the field with an online field guide, to know what parts of a plant or animal you should be focusing your camera's lens on.

Note: The following images are examples of good observation photos submitted to iMapInvasives. Each image is close-up, clear and crisp, and shows the species' distinguishing characteristics.

Amy Jewitt is the Invasive Species Coordinator at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program. Since 2013, she has served in this lead administrative role, maintaining a constant flow of information coming into the Pennsylvania iMapInvasives database. Amy provides broad-based support to new and existing users and trains individuals and organizations in the applications of this online tool which is used to track and record invasive species locations and management efforts across the Commonwealth.

Amy develops and grows relationships with a variety of people including individuals from state agencies, academia, non-profit organizations, and community scientists. She also creates educational materials about invasive species and iMapInvasives applications, compiles the program's newsletter, and maintains the PA iMapInvasives blog and website.

From her past involvement as a ground surveyor for the Pennsylvania Plum Pox Virus Eradication Program and the Massachusetts Asian Longhorned Beetle Cooperative Eradication Program, Amy has become a passionate advocate for raising awareness of the severe impacts that invasive species can have on the environment, economy, and to the health and well-being of humans and animals.

Amy's education includes a BS in Agricultural Science from The Pennsylvania State University with minors in Horticulture, International Agriculture, and Leadership Development. In her spare time, Amy enjoys hiking and kayaking, planting trees, traveling to new places, and being a parent to children in foster care.

Story written by Daniel Fenstermacher, Soil Scientist with the  USDA Forest Service, Allegheny National Forest 

Biochar is a soil amendment with an array of benefits useful in restoring disturbed lands. It can be produced on-site and has the potential to be used in non-native invasive plant treatments to help manage populations and restore lands.

Biochar = Biological Charcoal.

According to Merriam Webster, the term biochar was first used in 1995; however, it was used nearly 2,500 years ago in the Amazon where indigenous people added it to the soil with other materials (such as manure) to form the  terra preta , or "dark earth", which made the infertile Amazon soils of the region productive. These terra preta soils were discovered in 1950 and inspired research in biochar. Research has shown many great benefits and applications for biochar production and use. The biochar field/industry is small, but has expanded greatly during the last decade, particularly in the western United States, and is growing interest nationwide.

While there is a lot of hype about the long list of benefits and potential for biochar, it is not a cure-all, and in some situations, biochar has been found to be detrimental to plant growth. Proper research and characterization should be conducted prior to using biochar in a particular application. While the  Forest Service  is involved in biochar projects, there are currently no biochar projects occurring on Allegheny National Forest lands.

This article will provide an introduction to biochar, how it can be used in the management of invasive plant species, and hopefully inspire conversations around biochar in Pennsylvania.

Biochar is a charcoal (activated carbon) produced from biological sources through  pyrolysis  (burning with minimal oxygen) which limits the production of carbon dioxide and favors the production of carbon rich charcoal. There are several methods to produce biochar, but the simplest way, especially for small restoration projects, is to use a metal kiln (available for purchase or can be made in many shapes and sizes) or a pit. Both typically use woody biomass and need to be quenched with water to stop the burning process. A double-walled kiln helps to retain heat which results in high pyrolysis temperatures and is cool enough to approach to add material by hand.

Other techniques, such as a mobile pyrolysis machine like an air curtain burner, can be more efficient at biochar production and pelletize the biochar for easier broadcast application, but has a higher entry cost. Additionally, gasifiers can utilize wood and softer biomasses and combine the process with harvesting oils and energy and are typically at a biomass energy facility which requires the biomass to be transported to the facility. A kiln or mobile pyrolisis machine affords the convenience of production on site.

A sustainable biochar operation utilizes waste products to generate the biochar, such as residue from timber harvests, low quality wood, storm or insect damaged trees, invasive plants, or construction scraps (non-treated lumber). Timber harvests solely for the purpose of producing biochar are not recommended since there are plenty of biomass waste materials available from existing operations.

In the western United States, biochar production on National Forest System lands typically uses residues (tree tops and low quality wood) that would normally be pile burned to mitigate forest fire risks after harvest. Pile burning is a controversial practice that sterilizes the soil and favors the invasion of non-native species. The aerial image (below) shows unforested circles throughout the timber units on the  Flathead National Forest  in Montana that are 50-year burn pile scars filled with invasive species. In Pennsylvania, pile burning for forest fire mitigation isn't a common practice, although pile burning to dispose of invasive species does occur.

Biochar provides numerous physical, chemical, and biological improvements to the soil. Some of the biggest benefits from biochar include increases in:

• Soil water holding capacity to alleviate drought stress
• Soil nutrient retention (prevents leaching)
• Adsorption of pollutants
• Soil pH
• Soil mycorrhizal fungi communities
• Long-term storage of carbon (several centuries to thousands of years or more)

Biochar has been found to increase the growth and yield of many species; however, these benefits are not universal as biochar has been found to impair productivity of some species. This is likely a function of changes in optimal soil chemistry (primarily raising soil pH out of optimal range), nutrient retention (less nutrients readily available for uptake), and whether or not the species have mycorrhizal associations to access those nutrients.

Biochar use is a small but growing industry with expanding research and applications. The primary uses of biochar are in agriculture, nurseries (substitution for peat), restoration of disturbed lands (mine land,  log landings , etc.), stormwater renovation, and even for climate change mitigation. Biochar is carbon rich material that is resistant to decomposition and has been found to persist for more than centuries, with biochar still being abundant in the Amazonian terra preta soils. This persistence in the environment has attracted attention for the potential of long-term storage of carbon to help mitigate climate change.

In Pennsylvania, there is some activity surrounding biochar, primarily affiliated with research or pilot projects. In neighboring states there is more activity. For example, Maryland had a recent movement in using biochar for stormwater renovation and improving water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Natural Resource Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) has implemented a pilot Carbon Amendment Practice Code 808 for a cost share program promoting the application of biochar on cropland in the state of New York. Additionally, various universities such as Cornell and Penn State have been involved in biochar research and applications in agriculture and wastewater treatment. Nationally, the U.S. Forest Service uses biochar in the restoration of log landings, skid trails, abandoned roads, and abandoned mine lands.

The direct effect of biochar applied to soil with non-native invasive species has a lot of mixed results. Some studies have shown that invasive species with higher nitrogen demands could be impaired from biochar additions due to less available nitrogen, which would make native species with lower nitrogen demands more competitive. One considerable benefit is that biochar has been shown to mitigate allelopathic effects of some non-native plants, such as  garlic mustard , allowing native plant species to germinate. The mitigation of allelopathic effects in combination with other treatments can aid in the successful reestablishment of native plant communities in an infested area.

Another approach is to use the non-native invasives as feedstock to produce biochar. The harvest of biomass could be paired with another treatment method, such as cut stump herbicide treatment for woody biomass. Woody non-native species such as  tree-of-heaven ,  glossy buckthorn ,  autumn olive , and many others would likely have the best success of producing biochar. The biochar produced could be used in a project on or near site or could be sold as a commercial product which could reduce the cost of treatment or possibly result in a more economically viable treatment option with the generation of a commercial product. Improving or crossing this economic barrier could persuade land managers that otherwise would be discouraged to conduct traditional treatments on populations of non-native invasive species due to funding constraints.

Not all biochar is equal. Biochar's physical and chemical properties (% of biochar vs. ash produced, pH, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus contents, adsorption capacity, etc.) varies significantly between feedstock (species) used and the temperature at which it is made. These characteristics can greatly influence whether or not biochar is appropriate for the desired outcome. Research and characterization has focused mostly on native biomass, generally centered around forestry practices with few non-native species being characterized. Therefore, further research characterizing biochar from non-native plants needs to be conducted to better understand the properties of biochar to use it appropriately.

Efforts to use non-native species has generated traction in the United Kingdom where a company in the invasive species treatment industry is producing biochar from  Japanese knotweed  as part of its removal and dispoal process, and is interested in expanding the biochar production to other invasive species such as bamboo.

The iMapInvasives tool is used to collect and document populations of non-native species in the Allegheny National Forest. Data collected from the iMapInvasives community are used to monitor and identify populations for potential treatment. When a biochar program focused on using non-native plants as feedstock is developed in Pennsylvania or another state, the iMapInvasives database - which documents location, species, and abundance - would be a big aid in filtering populations that would be viable options for biochar production.

While the Allegheny National Forest does not currently have a biochar program, individuals there are exploring options for biochar production and use. Organizations interested in collaborating on biochar with the Allegheny National Forest are encouraged to reach out to  Daniel Fenstermacher .

Those interested in learning more about biochar can find additional resources and information from:

•  U.S. Biochar Initiative  (a collaborator with the U.S. Forest Service)
•  International Biochar Initiative 
•  Forestry and Natural Resources Webinar Portal  (access numerous free, on-demand webinars on biochar)

Daniel Fenstermacher is a Soil Scientist with the USDA Forest Service in the Allegheny National Forest. He is involved in the review and implementation of a wide array of projects, but primarily conducts soil surveys and monitoring for vegetation management, recreation, and watershed improvement projects.

Daniel earned a BS from Delaware Valley University in Biology and a MS from the Univeristy of Maryland in Soil and Watershed Science.

In his spare time, Daniel can be found enjoying the multitude of recreation or conservation opportunities available in the great outdoors. Some of his favorite activities include running, hiking, and biking through the forest with his energetic dog, Scout.

Story written by Jocelyn Behm, Assistant Professor, and Payton Phillips, PhD Candidate, each of the Biology Department at  Temple University 

Researchers at Temple University are working to understand how invasive understory plants influence tick populations and the prevalence of tick-borne diseases. A team of students and their professor conducted extensive field sampling in paired forest plots with and without invasive plants and tested collected ticks for pathogens. Preliminary results suggest that ticks, including newly invasive tick species, have higher population densities in dense invaded understory and are more likely to be infected with pathogens.

In the summer heat, our team of researchers spread out across the forest floor, each unrolling a white fleece cloth. The understory around us is dense with thorny plants that scratch our legs and snag at the cloths as we begin to drag them across the ground. Our field team pushes through the discomfort, shoving the cloths underneath the thick brush, making sure to disturb the leaf litter as we slowly march forward in a straight line. At the end of our transect, we lift the cloth and carefully inspect the bright white surface, pausing to carefully examine every brown poppy seed-sized fleck.

We are looking for ticks. Our goal here is to compare the numbers and species of ticks found in these dense understory habitats, which are characterized mainly by invasive shrubs, as compared to those found in areas with more natural understory. While most people specifically try to avoid ticks while enjoying the outdoors, we seek them out with the hope of understanding the relationships between habitat and human disease risk.

The understories of many modern forests, especially those found in urban areas, are characterized by high densities of invasive plants. In eastern Pennsylvania, three of the most common invasive plant species are  multiflora rose ,  Japanese barberry , and  wineberry . Each was introduced from Asia and has the capacity to grow especially well in disturbed habitats. As a result of their quick reproduction and spread, they often cover the forest floor in the dense, thorn-filled thickets encountered by our field team.

While we found the thorny thickets of invasive plants difficult and often painful to work in, many species flourish in this new habitat. For instance, ticks, such as  black-legged ticks  thrive in dense Japanese barberry thickets, where they are protected from desiccation by the humid conditions. In addition, ticks are more likely to be infected with pathogens, such as  Borrelia burgdorferi , the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, in invaded forests. This means that invasive understory plants may pose a significant risk to human health by creating ideal habitats for ticks to thrive.

During the summer of 2021, we established sample plots in 18 forests across Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. Within these forests, we used a paired design to better understand the effects of multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, and wineberry cover on tick abundance and disease. In each forest, we selected an area with a high amount of dense invasive plant understory - an area you likely wouldn't willingly choose to hike through. For comparison, we paired this plot with another in the same forest that had a more open understory, often with a high amount of native  spicebush .

In each plot, we conducted detailed vegetation surveys. We calculated the percent cover of vegetation types, including the three invasives, and also measured plant structure. Then we set out to perform the arduous task of conducting tick drags at each location. Tick drags are a common and standardized method for sampling ticks. When ticks are seeking a blood meal, they will perch atop the vegetation with arms outstretched, waiting for an animal to pass by, a process referred to as "questing". As an animal passes, the tick will grab on in hopes of securing their next meal. We can use this behavior to our advantage and essentially trick the ticks into believing the cloth we drag across the ground is an animal. We can then begin the painstaking process of carefully examining the cloth and removing each tiny individual tick to take back to the lab.

Back in the lab, a team of students sorted and identified the ticks to species under a microscope. Across our sites, we collected native  Eastern black-legged ticks  and  American dog ticks , as well as  Lone-star ticks , which have been spreading northward from the southern United States and are relatively new in Pennsylvania, and invasive  Asian long-horned ticks . Each of these species may carry different diseases and poses a unique risk to humans. After identification, we sent the black-leged ticks, which can carry Lyme disease, to the Tick Lab at East Stroudsburg University. There, they were tested not only for Lyme disease, but also for the causative agents of less common tick-borne diseases  Anaplasmosis  and  Babesiosis .

Overall, our dense, invaded plots tended to have higher numbers of ticks for all tick species. This pattern was especially evident for the invasive lone-star ticks and Asian long-horned ticks. At one site, we found 88 Asian long-horned tick nymphs in a single drag! When we tested the black-legged ticks for pathogens, we found similarily disturbing patterns. A greater proportion of the ticks tested positive for pathogens in dense plots. We also only found  Babesia microti  in ticks collected from dense plots. This pathogen can infect human blood cells, causing anemia, meaning it poses an additional risk to human health. Future data analyses will allow us to tease out these relationships in more detail and explore the mechanisms behind them.

These results inform our understanding of how human risk of contracting tick-borne diseases is altered by habitat. As invasive understory plants push into more disturbed forest patches, we may see more areas with higher tick populations and higher proportions of infected ticks. In order to understand where these areas of higher risk might occur, it is important to track the spread of both invasive understory plants and of newly invasive tick species. Tools like iMapInvasives allow both practitioners and community scientists to report invasive species, leading to more comprehensive documentation of their range. Information from our sampling is being included in iMapInvasives and we encourage you to add your observations too!

Jocelyn Behm is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Temple University where she is a co-leader of the  Integrative Ecology Lab . She conducts research understanding the impacts of invasive species and land use change on local biodiversity and ultimately human well-being. She teaches classes on ecology, the biological impacts of climate change, and statistical modeling. In her spare time, she tries to get outside as much as possible.

Payton Phillips is a PhD candidate in Biology at Temple University. Her research focuses on Lyme disease ecology across the urban to rural gradient around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, crochet, and volunteering with her local shelter dogs.

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program collectively administer a program in Pennsylvania known as  iMapInvasives , a database which accepts reports of invasive plants, animals, and insects found in the Commonwealth. All reports are reviewed by a species expert prior to being confirmed in the database to ensure data quality.

iMapInvasives is freely available for public use and requires a  login account  to view data.  Public reports  of invasive species sightings are accepted by Pennsylvania iMapInvasives from individuals without registered login accounts.

 NatureServe  is the developer of iMapInvasives. In addition to Pennsylvania, several other U.S. states and Canadian provinces participate in the  iMapInvasives network .