Location: Invasive Plant Research Laboratory
Project Number: 6032-22000-012-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Oct 1, 2015
End Date: Sep 30, 2020
Objective:
Our goal is the environmentally safe, sustainable suppression of exotic invasive species that threaten natural, agricultural, and urban ecosystems in the United States with an emphasis on weeds.
Objective 1: Develop biological control programs for invasive weeds threatening the Everglades, and similar southeastern ecosystems, through the discovery, identification, efficacy testing, safety testing, release, and evaluation of new biological control agents.
Sub-objective 1.1. Elucidate the ecology and population dynamics of targeted weeds and their potential insect and pathogen biological control agents, and investigate the impact of weed suppression on community and ecosystem structure and function.
Sub objective 1.2. Conduct faunistic and floristic inventories to discover natural enemies that may serve as biological control agents for targeted weed species.
Sub-objective 1.3. Conduct risk analysis to determine environmental safety of new and existing potential biological control agents for weeds.
Objective 2: Improve current biological control programs of invasive weeds in the Everglades, and similar southeastern ecosystems, by developing integrated weed management strategies.
Approach:
As described above, biological control research progresses in a stepwise fashion and our objectives detailed below are interconnected and flexible. The objectives are intentionally general to encompass the various weed targets and natural enemies that are currently under investigation, as well as those that may be added during the life of the research project. The first objective contains three sub-objectives that address the ecology of the weed, the discovery of potential agents, and the determination of their safety for release. The second objective focuses on the integration of biological control with other methods. A Milestone Table is prepared for each sub-objective and provides details on the tested hypotheses, scientific assignments, annual goals (milestones), and expected products of the research.
