National Park Service
Date of this Version
2008
Abstract
The quarantine strategy is recognized as one of the most effective strategies for controlling invasive plant populations. The quarantine strategy as described by Woodall 1981 is where the least-infested areas (outliers) are addressed first in order to stop the progression of the existing population. Detection of individual trees and scattered small clusters is imperative for the success of the quarantine strategy.Attempts to map individual trees and small clusters of invasive plants in south Florida such as Melaleuca quinquenervia through remote sensing have not been successful. For example, in 1988 efforts to detect Melaleuca from false color infrared (1:10,000) in Everglades National Park showed that Melaleuca had a distinctive signature and could be identified on the imagery; however, imagery was not successful at locating individual trees and small clusters (Rose and Doren 1988). Systematic aerial surveys or systematic reconnaissance flights (SRFs) have been widely used to estimate species abundance and distribution of biological populations. SRFs have shown to be particularly practical when a study area is large or remote (Quang and Lanctot 1991). In Florida, SRFs have been shown to be the most practical and cost effective method to map individual populations of invasive plants.
Comments
Published in Weber, Samantha, and David Harmon, eds. 2008. Rethinking Protected Areas in a Changing World: Proceedings of the 2007 GWS Biennial Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites. Hancock, Michigan: The George Wright Society.