PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 132: Invasive Species: Management and Indicator Species
Thursday, August 11, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 516 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Show me the data: Non-native Species Indicators for the U.S.

Meyerson, Laura^*,1, ¹ The Heinz Center, Washington, DC

ABSTRACT- Invasive non-native species are often cited as one of the most significant environmental challenges facing the United States, but large-scale long-term data sets for non-native species are scarce and currently no national-level measuring, monitoring, and reporting system exists. Significant data collection does occur at national or regional scales for certain ecosystems such as forests or estuaries, and for some taxa such as fishes, but many such efforts are isolated within federal and state agencies and non-governmental organizations and much of these data report only on the presence of non-native species. Furthermore, the types of data collected for non-native species and the methods used vary by ecosystem and taxon making data aggregation a significant challenge. The State of the Nations Ecosystem project has finalized a suite of indicators for non-native plants, pathogens, vertebrates and invertebrates that systematically reports on trends in non-native species in coasts and oceans, freshwater, grasslands and shrublands, forests, croplands and urban and suburban ecosystems. Where they are available, data are reported for the indicators. The non-native species indicators emphasize the importance of improving and refining data collection and of standardizing monitoring efforts to facilitate comparability across individual sites, regions, species, and communities.

Key words: Non-native species, Indicators