IPANE in the Morning - Day 1, Part 2

The second morning session was all about the IPANE project:

• Les Mehrhoff was up again, this time doing some IPANE by the Numbers: 126 different invasive plants tracked, 500+ volunteers, 6000+ herbarium records, 3000+ field reports, 7000+ species reports. Wow. Also, he was wearing a really cool black IPANE t-shirt. I want one.

• Chris Mattrick spoke after receiving a giant golden shovel from Les. I'm trying really hard not to find any metaphor in there. Chris pointed out ways that the New England Wildflower Society has been an intergal part of coordinating the IPANE volunteers and, more importantly, developing the volunteer training programs to teach people how to collect data and identify invasive plants.

• Cynthia Boettner shared a few inspirational stories about IPANE volunteers who really went the extra mile to protect habitats they cared about from invasive plants.

• Robin Harrington ended the session with her talk, "Connecting the Fields of Research and Management: A Synergism Necessary for Success." (Hey, "fields" - I just got it :-)). Two interesting points from her talk:

  • Researchers should always be thinking about management implications when they are designing invasive plant experiments. Good example: learning that the seeds of Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) don't stay viable in the soil for very long is going to strongly influence what control methods you choose to use against it.

  • Scientists need funding...land managers need help managing invasives. So why not work together: get land managers to fund university research in exchange for the opportunity to get a specific problem solved.