Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

Target Pests

Practices

This “Work Group” proposal addresses the Center’s “Invasive Species” priority. The project involves collaboration among five states and the Yurok tribal nation. Key stakeholder groups are (1) land managers needing advance notice of potential new invasive plants and (2) nurseries needing guidance to avoid introducing risky plants through horticulture.

Prevention is a key IPM approach for stopping the spread of invasive plants. Because many plants have an extensive lag phase before becoming invasive, prevention can be strengthened by predicting which plant species may become invasive in the future in a given region. The Plant Risk Evaluator (PRE) tool is an online assessment tool designed by researchers at UC Davis and University of Washington to predict the risk of plants becoming invasive in a given region. The PRE tool has been used in California for assessing plant species of potential concern, both non-natives observed by land managers to be growing in wildlands as well as horticultural plants identified via PlantRight, an interdisciplinary partnership in California convened to prevent introduction of invasive plants through horticulture.

In the first phase of this project, funded by the Western IPM Center in 2021, we formed a multi-state work group with partners from California, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona to expand use of the PRE tool regionally for invasive plant risk assessment. Partners were trained on conducting and reviewing evaluations. Trainees selected and drafted assessments for 25 priority species (10 for California, 5 for each partner state). Project stakeholders included the nursery industry, academia, agencies, and the conservation community.

This year, we propose to expand and strengthen the adoption of the PRE tool across western states. We will do this by: (1) Working with Washington, Oregon, and Arizona partners to evaluate five more species per state; (2) adding new partners Nevada and the Yurok Tribe of the Klamath River region of California, training them on PRE, and supporting evaluation of five species for each; (3) continuing quarterly collaboration meetings for all partners to share information on newly introduced horticultural and non-horticultural species and to discuss interpretation and application of PRE tool results; and (4) maintaining the PRE web tool and preparing to move it to a newer web content management system.

We will continue to share this work with our partners across the country, with whom we are working to increase continuity across invasive plant assessment methodologies. It is unclear whether the PRE tool will become a standard in the future; that will have to organically emerge over time. But it is clear that broadening adoption of the PRE tool brings additional benefits by strengthening inter-state collaboration in identifying plants of concern early.  

Our objectives are:

Objective 1. Strengthen existing PRE assessment capacity – We will strengthen invasive plant risk assessment capacity in the current four partner states (California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington) and begin training for two new partners (State of Nevada and the Yurok tribe).  Cal-IPC and PlantRight will organize workflow and ensure consistent, high-quality use of the PRE tool. We will also discuss ways to use the completed assessments in each partners’ prevention efforts. 90% likelihood of success by 10/31/2022.

Objective 2. Generate PRE assessments – We will work with partners in each state and the Yurok tribe to generate assessments with the PRE tool for a total of 30 plant species (roughly five each in Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington, Nevada and the Yurok tribal lands of California). 90% likelihood of success by 2/28/2023.

Objective 3. Maintain PRE tool – We will work with the website manager to continue to improve functionality of the online PRE tool and database of completed PRE assessments. 90% likelihood of success by 2/28/2023.

Objective 4. Strengthen work group – We will grow and support the work group through regular communications. We will share information on the work group’s efforts with other western states through the Western Weed Coordinating Committee, as part of building toward greater continuity in invasive plant assessments across western states. 90% likelihood of success by 2/28/2023.

Objective 5. Build national continuity – We will coordinate with the national consortium of state invasive plant list experts initiated by the National Association of Invasive Plant Councils and share lessons learned on using the PRE tool for risk assessment. 90% likelihood of success by 2/28/2023.

We have a high degree of confidence that objectives 1-5 can be accomplished in the one-year timeframe of a Western IPM Center grant period. We have a strong team of willing partners, many of which are already experienced with the project.