PARENT SESSION
Session #21: Current status of knowledge on invasive species: Theory and practice. Organized by: R. C. Anderson and W. R. Perry.
Thursday, August 9, 2001. Madison Ballroom B
Protecting biodiversity from invasive species in a large metropolitan area.
Packard, Stephen1, White, Rickie1, 1
ABSTRACT- In the Chicago metropolitan area, more than fifty land management agencies seek to protect biodiversity on 200,000 acres of conservation land. These lands include some of the most important habitats for endangered species and natural community conservation in what is now the midwest corn belt. Invasives are a major threat including a small number of exotics and many species native to this region, which now are invasive because of disrupted natural processes. Scores of staff and thousands of volunteers carry out control efforts. Various combinations of fire, physical removal, herbicide application, and the introduction of competing or consuming species achieved effective control of some invasive species in certain situations. We are attempting to measure the efficacy of our efforts on the managed sites. As an example of data to evaluate management we present a 15-year data set from a 142 hectare preserve largely surrounded by development. The prairie, savanna, woodland and wetland on this site had become ecologically more healthy by many measures over the first ten years of study, then suffered as management was partially halted. The metropolitan area, as a landscape for conservation, has unique challenges and abundant special resources. We describe the important role of staff and volunteers in land management, monitoring, and advocacy from a variety of organizations in the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council (Chicago Wilderness).
KEY WORDS: invasives, monitoring, volunteers, management