All Your Database Are Belong To Us

The Global Invasive Species Information Network (GISIN) just published a massive list of online databases related to non-native/invasive species. The list, covering all parts of the globe, currently contains over 250 entries, from the Marine Alien Species of Estonia to the Delaware Invasive Species Tracking System. If you feel like going meta and exploring the list of lists, you can also grab it in Word doc and plain text flavors.

Georgia On My Mind

In case you missed it back in February, The Bugwood Network, an amazing repository of invasive species images and distribution data, officially became the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. Housed out of the University of Georgia, the Center will continue to be a goto source for information about forest pests, invasive plants, and pathogens that impact the USA, and will likely continue to broaden its global resources as well. In fact, if you deal with invasive species, you've probably already visited one of their websites, even if you don't realize it.

The Continental

File this one under "It's About Time!" As recently as a few months ago, the USDA's PLANTS database called a plant species "native" if it was considered native in any part of the US or its territories. This was particularly frustrating in cases, for example, of tropical species that have been recorded only in Puerto Rico, or for species native to the mainland US but considered introduced in Hawaii. I am happy to report that the PLANTS database now acknowledges that being native to a political part of the USA is not the same as being native to the entire American landscape:

Note the red box I've drawn on the screengrab above - the database now clearly separates native/introduced data for each plant species into the following categories:

1. The "Lower 48" states (every state but Alaska and Hawaii)
2. Alaska
3. Hawaii
4. Puerto Rico
5. The US Virgin Islands
6. Canada! No, really!
7. The Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (A French territory off the Atlantic coast of Canada!)

This is a great step forward for what is already an extensive and highly valued source of plant data for the US.

Gardening By Computer

Attention New England gardeners: A couple of years ago, a bunch of us started working on the New England Native Alternatives Gardening Guide, a project to create a website that takes invasive plant profiles and gives you back suggestions of what native plants are good alternatives. The backend uses a database derived from the New England Wildflower Society's 2005 native plant catalog, so it's a little out of date, but it could still be a fun tool for those of you who are looking to plant natives in the garden. If you get bored of looking at the native replacements, you can go directly to the native plant database and search by characters like flower color, plant height and soil type.

Note that this is just an experimental project, with a machine making the decisions for you, and of course is not meant to take the place of expert advice :-).

The Fighting Irish

Trinity College in Dublin recently debuted a very nice internet resource for invasive plant information. The Alien plants in Ireland database, which contains over 700 species, is searchable by taxonomy, location, and invasive status. You can search for species by Latin name or in English (and supposedly French, German, and Dutch too, but I could not get those to work). The entry for each plant displays its name in multiple languages along with an extensive amount of biological information including growth form, reproductive stats (pollinators, seed dimensions) and habitat types. It is obvious that a lot of effort went into making this database, and it is sure to be a useful tool both in Ireland and around the world.