Biosecurity research efforts will be well funded in Australia

News just out - the Plant Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) has won its rebid, second time lucky!  Here is a link to the previous, related, CRC for National Plant Biosecurity for whom I spent 2 years working as a post-doc.  Alongside CSIRO's new Biosecurity Flagship, funding support for research into Biosecurity in Australia has never been stronger, exciting times.

 

A meta-analysis of the impacts of alien plants

Our latest review is of a meta-analysis that examines a wide range of studies from across the globe (including invasive animals, as well as plants) to try and identify some general impacts invasive species have on species, communities and ecosystems.

Vilà, M., Espinar, J. L., Hejda, M., Hulme, P. E., Jarošík, V., Maron, J. L., Pergl, J., Schaffner, U., Sun, Y. and Pyšek, P. (2011), Ecological impacts of invasive alien plants: a meta-analysis of their effects on species, communities and ecosystems. Ecology Letters, 14: 702–708. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01628.x

Our Review: Parry H, Lonsdale M: 2011. F1000.com/13365971

This comprehensive meta-analysis of over 500 articles illuminates some key future research directions for the ecology of alien plant introductions. The authors draw some conclusions on the general relative impacts of alien plants on ecosystems. These impacts range from species, through community, up to ecosystem-level, including changes in nutrient levels and cycling.

What is this blog about?

Well, I created a word cloud using Wordle to tell you!
(if you click the picture below you will see it more clearly)

A global experiment in biogeography

I am continuing to assist Dr Lonsdale and review for F1000 after all!  The last few months there seems to have been an absolute flurry of decent articles on invasion ecology, so we have carefully waded through to try and pick out some gems.  This review is really a review of a special issue rather than a single article, with an entire issue of Diversity and Distributions dedicated to that global wanderer, the Acacia.  This showcases a diverse range of excellent studies on the acacia from across the globe.

Human-mediated introductions of Australian acacias – a global experiment in biogeography.  
Richardson, D. M., Carruthers, J., Hui, C., Impson, F. A. C., Miller, J. T., Robertson, M. P., Rouget, M., Le Roux, J. J. and Wilson, J. R. U. (2011) Diversity and Distributions, 17: 771–787.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00824.x

Our review: Parry H, Lonsdale M: 2011. F1000.com/13357278

This is the leading article for a special issue of ‘Diversity and Distributions’ that focuses on the global movement of Australian acacia species and their invasiveness. The paper is important in establishing the case that acacias are a powerful model for testing some fundamental ideas in invasion ecology, which subsequent articles in the issue go on to do. 

Post-docs ahoy!

I received this advert for some post-doc positions that have come up in New Zealand that may be of interest:

Three Post Doctoral fellowships are now available in the Bio-Protection Research Centre (www.bioprotection.org.nz) working with Profs. Phil Hulme and Richard Duncan. The Post Doctoral fellows will join an active research group focused on the ecology of plant invasions, which has strong international linkages and a focus on high quality scientific publications. The Post Doctoral fellow will undertake independent research as well as contributing to wider research through interactions with staff and postgraduate students in the plant invasions group.  Funding commences 1 February 2012. 

The three fellowships available are:

A round-up of the last month or so

After taking some time out to visit the UK to see my folks I'm back in action!  There seems to have been quite a lot of interesting publications in the invasion ecology space over the last couple of months, so as I am trawling through to select for our next F1000 review I thought I would share my shortlist with you!

-       Biological invasions in rapidly urbanizing areas: a case study of Beijing, China (Biodiversity and Conservation): this is interesting as it seems pretty novel to give a baseline of invasives for a city like Beijing and is well executed – implications for many other cities in the ‘developing’ world and simply highlights the research needs following such a comprehensive baseline study quite well ((i) estimates of species frequency in each district; (ii) identification of the historical process of invasions within the municipality; (iii) identification of the most aggressive invaders; and (iv) estimates of the economic and environmental impacts of the introduced species. http://www.springerlink.com/content/vq847t82k48u28j6/

-          Diversity and Distributions Special Issue: Human-mediated introductions of Australian acacias - a global experiment in biogeography I've not gone through this too thoroughly yet, but interesting it has got so much attention to warrant a special issue - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.2011.17.issue-5/issuetoc  one of the papers is Trees and shrubs as invasive alien species – a global review

-          Strong response of an invasive plant species (Centaurea solstitialis L.) to global environmental changes  (Ecological Applications) – simply a nice study as it looks at multiple and combined environmental changes (temperatures, CO2, fire etc) and their impacts on  an invasive, whereas most studies only look at one aspect of future climates.  http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/11-0111.1

-          Remote analysis of biological invasion and the impact of enemy release (Ecological Applications) – as summarized at the end of the abstract, this is interesting because: These findings demonstrate that enemy release from generalist herbivores can facilitate exotic success and suggest a plausible mechanism by which invasion occurred. They also show how novel remote-sensing technology can be integrated with conservation and management to help address exotic plant invasions. http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/10-0859.1

-          Propagule pressure hypothesis not supported by an 80-year experiment on woody species invasion (Oikos) – one of those long term data rich studies that also challenges a theory about invasion ecology.  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2011.19504.x/abstract

-          Invasive plants do not display greater phenotypic plasticity than their native or non-invasive counterparts: a meta-analysis (Oikos) – the magic word ‘meta-analysis’ and like above also challenges a theory (though we have looked at studies challenging this theory before and it often depends how its looked at...) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.19114.x/abstract

-          Invasives: Sea of Data Still to Come (Science) This is a v short letter but it highlights some issues surrounding marine invasives and the lack of knowledge about dispersal ecology.  The other letter on the page is also about invasives on this page just relates to the ongoing controversial debate about ‘embracing invasives’… http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/937.3.full.pdf

Analyzing the Social Factors That Influence Willingness to Pay for Invasive Alien Species Management Under Two Different Strategies: Eradication and Prevention (Environmental Management) – an article that is a bit obscure but interesting topic – not often is the social context of invasives well addressed but its very important determinant on how they are managed. http://www.springerlink.com/content/m70762l8541p5166/

Get informed on the climate debate

Want to put up a good debate next time you are faced with a Climate Change denier, like this Australian example in blog-land?  Get informed on the scientific facts by leading scientists at CSIRO's informative workshop coming up on Saturday 20th August.

A Warming earth: What is the cost of doing nothing?

Saturday 20 August 9am – 5.30pm
CSIRO Discovery Centre, Canberra

Are you confused by the global warming debate? What is the actual scientific evidence behind global warming? What are the implications and challenges? Can we afford to do nothing? These questions and more will be explored and discussed in this interactive one-day workshop hosted by the ACT branch of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) and CSIRO Discovery Centre.