User:Ryansteiny/workspace/EBIPM

EBIPM, Ecologically-based invasive plant management, is a decision-making framework that incorporates the principles of ecology to restore landscapes infested with invasive plants.

= Background =
 * The tools and strategies that land managers have used to manage invasive plants have traditionally focused on treating the symptom of the problem . The treatment may kill the weeds but within a short time they're back because the treatment merely addressed the symptom (killing the weeds) rather than focusing on the underlying cause of invasion (repairing ecological processes) . EBIPM can help land managers in all aspects of managing invasive species by providing a systematic thinking and planning process that is easy to follow because it's set up in a stepwise framework . Even more essential, the EBIPM model gives land managers a framework to follow so they can apply the most effective combination of tools and strategies that focus on the true causes of invasion instead of merely controlling the abundance of invasive species.
 * The EBIPM framework has its roots in the three primary causes of plant community change, also known as ecological succession (site availability, species availability and species performance). Also included in the EBIPM model are ecological processes that drive the causes of succession and these processes' modifying factors. Ecological principles have been developed which direct the specific management tools and strategies that will more successfully effect positive change on the landscape through influence on one or more of the three causes of succession. This creates a connection between the ecological processes driving a plant community and treatments a manager may implement.

= Steps =
 * The EBIPM model provides a five-step comprehensive decision tool that can improves management decision-making and increases success rates significantly.


 * This section is not nearly sufficient to serve as a "how-to" section, this is merely a brief outline of the steps of the EBIPM framework. For more information on how to implement EBIPM, visit www.ebipm.org, see the EBIPM guidelines listed under the Further Reading section below, or view the associated  EBIPM videos listed below and available at www.ebipm.org.

Step 1: Complete a Rangeland Health Assessment

 * A fundamental element of land management is to evaluate the current condition of the land and learn what needs fixed, or treated. In the EBIPM process, this step identifies the ecological processes that are in need of repair Sheley, Roger L., James, Jeremy J., Vasquez, Edward A., Svejcar, Tony J. (2011). . Most protocols for assessing rangeland health are aimed only at gathering the needed information to assess the existing conditions and previous trends . One such rangeland health assessment, Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health, is currently being adopted or implemented by most government agencies as protocol . This assessment strategy provides a solid platform of telling the current conditions while the EBIPM process employs this assessment with one additional phase by identifying what needs to be fixed . Rangeland health assessment provides the information for what the current conditions are and EBIPM enhances that to learn why those conditions exist and what ecological processes are in need of repair...what to do about it. Degraded rangeland can usually be attributed to ecological processes not functioning properly. :The Bureau of Land Management offers comprehensive trainings on Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health and the EBIPM Assessment Guidelines provide a more in-depth how-to guide for completing an assessment as part of the first step of the EBIPM process.

Step 2: Identify Causes of Invasion and Associated Processes Not Functioning

 * The assessment mentioned in the previous section provides the information for what the current conditions are and EBIPM enhances that to inform why those conditions exist and what causes of plant community change/succession and associated processes are not functioning . One of the biggest challenges of rangeland management is the level of complexity involved with any given ecosystem and why they change from healthy plant communities to infested or damaged lands. In most cases, the weeds are merely a symptom of the problem . The real problem is, more often than not, an ecological process in disrepair . These ecological processes in disrepair are what drive a plant community to change . Successional management narrows all the possible reasons for invasion and change into three specific causes for plant community change: site availability, species availability, and species performance . EBIPM's focus shifts management from trying to kill the weeds to directing the processes that drive the three causes of plant community change, which can lead to predictable and sustainable transitions toward a desired ecosystem . :The following paragraphs describe each of the three causes of more fully.

Site Availability

 * Site availability refers primarily to the availability of safe sites in the soil profile and the process of disturbance . Disturbance is a temporary variation in the typical environmental conditions which often significantly affects and alters an ecosystem . Disturbance can be a result of human disruption such as recreation, construction, or fire and it also occurs naturally through wildfire, flood, insect infestation, animal activity and other processes including variations in weather . These variations create openings for new or different plants which changes the natural succession of a plant community . Disturbance also lessens the competitive intensity between plants, changes conditions in the environment, and alters the supply rates of resources . This knowledge creates an opportunity for land managers to direct plant communities in a desired direction by manipulating disturbances to favor desired species . This strategy can significantly impact and promote germination, establishment, and growth of native and desired species over invasive species.

Species Availability

 * Species availability relates directly to the ecological processes of reproduction and dispersal, in other words, the availability of species through propagules either present in the soil seedbank or brought in by dispersal Essentially, species availability is the presence and establishment of various species . Seeds have developed a number of adaptations and are dispersed through various methods including wind, water, barbs, hooks, and awns that stick to animals and clothing...etc.
 * Generally, invasive species produce more seeds relative to desired native species which gives the invasive species a competitive advantage. Managers can shift that balance back to the desired and native species by increasing their reproductive capacity and density (adding seeds...seeding treatment), which can lead to higher densities of particular species. This is often enough to help desired plants get a leg up on the competition and swing the competitive balance back in a positive direction . In short, one way invasive species gain an advantage is through higher reproductive rates but land managers can favor desired species by increase the reproductive rates of the desired species while decreasing that of the invasive species. An example of this is found in a study discussed in Applying Ecologically Based Invasive Plant Management. In a rangeland area dominated by spotted knapweed (Centaurea diffusa L.) and with little intermediate wheatgrasss, seeding to increase the availability of the wheatgrass' propagules resulted in its augmented establishment and population in higher numbers than the invasive knapweed.

Species Performance

 * Species Performance is how well a given species can perform in diverse environmental conditions based on a range of ecological processes including a species' ability to capture and use resources to survive and increase or spread in the environment despite competition, stress, and interference.
 * The factors that define a given species' ability to survive and thrive in a number of different environmental conditions are:
 * 1) resource availability and a species' ability to acquire and utilize those resources
 * 2) response to environment or a plant's ability adapt to changes in environmental conditions (also called ecophysiological plant traits)
 * 3) life strategy or a plant's life history strategy and the associated trade-offs that influence the survival or death of a species
 * 4) stress and the ability of a species to either avoid or tolerate stress, and
 * 5) interference or the level at which a plant is influenced by nearby plants of differing species.


 * It's important to note that invasive species are generally more efficient than native species at taking advantage of extra resources if they become available through disturbance or some other process . A good example of this is found in a study by Suding, et al.(2004), looking at invasive weed responses to nitrogen and phosphorus. In the study, spotted knapweed's competitive ability was much greater in soils with high phosphorous availability and that competitiveness lessened, compared to that of native species, in soils that had low phosphorous availability.
 * This type of information can be critical to promoting native and desired species as land managers attempt to give native and desired species a competitive edge by manipulating the factors that influence how a species performs.

Step 3: Use Principles to Guide Decision Making

 * The EBIPM framework is built on the idea that treatments are more successful and sustainable when the scientific principles of ecology are considered during the decision-making process . This makes Step 3, and the ecological principles for managing succession, a critical component of the EBIPM process. The ecological principles that provide direction for management were developed from existing scientific literature and are aimed at improving management by providing maximum plant diversity and maximum biomass in the ecosystem . Land managers face difficult decisions in trying to successfully repair and restore complex ecological processes and they often rely solely on their own intuition and experience to determine the tools and strategies they will use. Through the EBIPM approach, land managers combine their knowledge and experience with established ecological principles to choose the best management tools and strategies for dealing with complex problems. . This provides an obvious benefit in that the proven scientific knowledge is organized into a functional listing of principles that land managers can use to help guide their decision-making which will allow them to repair ecological processes through the use of the tools and strategies they are familiar with.

Step 4: Choose Appropriate Tools and Strategies Based on Principles

 * By this point in the EBIPM process, possible tools and strategies have been identified and a manager can begin to develop treatments based on the principles of ecology and the processes that are in need of repair. In developing these treatments, managers will improve the likelihood of success if they take into account the link between ecological processes, ecological principles, and the practices they employ to try and make positive changes on their land . Ecological processes direct vegetation dynamics and ecological principles provide the scientific knowledge about how these processes work to affect vegetation change . EBIPM is based on this linkage and the core of this decision framework rests on a manager’s ability to manipulate the ecological processes to cause desired changes in species diversity and biomass production . These principles provide managers an increased understanding of ecosystem processes and the ability to predict outcomes in a variety of situations . The principles can also help managers to understand how processes in need of repair may be to blame for driving successional patterns in an undesired direction toward the increased presence of invasive plants . This produces a more informed base for land managers to use in decision-making.
 * These ecological principles provide objectives, or steps to take, for how an ecological process should be altered by management to favor desired vegetation change . The principles direct managers toward achieving objectives by selecting and implementing strategies and tools that have the highest probability of changing the ecological process to achieve the ecological target.
 * For example, one of the principles aimed at managing the ecological process of disturbance is “Lower disturbance frequencies favor establishment of desired species compared with higher disturbance frequencies” . The objective or target is to design management strategies that reduce the frequency of disturbance. In annual grass invaded systems, frequent fires are a major disturbance that facilitates continuous re-invasion. This principle directs the manager to think about how this fire cycle might be broken, such as reducing fuel loads or inter-seeding a later maturing species that stays fire resistant later into the growing season.
 * Another part of choosing appropriate tools and strategies is selecting plant materials based on the ecosystem and the available resources. Linking tools and strategies with the principles of ecology provides a number of benefits including the ability to more accurately predict the outcome in a given situation and to improve planning by providing a basis to evaluate and compare different tools and techniques . These principles provide a target for managers to aim for as they plan treatments that will increase the growth of desired vegetation.
 * There may be more than one principle for any process, and there are likely multiple processes to consider for each of the three causes of succession used in this decision framework . The aim of management is to plan a practical system of practices to optimize the potential to achieve the major target objectives, and thus, create an integrated invasive management plan truly based on ecological knowledge.

Step 5: Design and Execute a Plan Using Adaptive Management

 * Developing rangeland management plans can be difficult and extremely unpredictable but the EBIPM process provides managers a method to work through both of these challenges . However, outcomes and the true effectiveness of management is virtually impossible to predict because of the complexity of any given rangeland ecosystem and the number of variables at play . To combat this, the EBIPM process includes adaptive management which empowers managers to learn by doing in the face of uncertainty . Adaptive management sets treatments up using experimental design so that managers can test various management options and see what works best on their land and in their situation.
 * The adaptive management idea has been accepted as a useful tool in rangeland management but the complete process is not always fully understood. Following the steps of experimental design, the adaptive management process directs managers to formulate management questions, test those questions through management techniques, and then apply the techniques to the land, always incorporating a control. Following treatments, data is collected and analyzed and the findings provide guidance for the next management step . Managers may see this as extra work but the costs are, by far, outweighed by the benefits which include an increased knowledge of the system and the land and the development of management strategies that are the best alternatives for that specific site. An adaptive management program promotes the most best use of funds and is based on scientific knowledge, which makes it easier to defend should the need arise. Using adaptive management will also increase a manager's ability to improve decision-making on their land.
 * An essential portion of adaptive management is using a control plot, where no treatment is applied, and regular monitoring . While most land managers understand the importance of monitoring to learn the effectiveness of a treatment, monitoring alone cannot tell a manager whether a given treatment was more or less effective than if the manager had not done any treatments. The complexity of rangeland ecosystems makes finding the most efficient treatment extremely challenging and for the most sustainable and effective management, monitoring with a control is key . Managers can make adaptive management as involved as they feel is necessary, but to successfully repair and restore damaged rangeland requires a long-term commitment, whether using adaptive management and the EBIPM decision model, or any other method for that matter . A step-by-step user's guide to adaptive management provides detailed method to this important planning process.

= Summary =
 * Implementing EBIPM is a five-step process that can lead to better techniques, greater sustainability, and increased success in managing invasive species. This introductory article has been presented as a broad overview of the entire step-by-step process.

= See also =
 * invasive plants
 * weeds
 * adaptive management
 * conservation ecology
 * decision theory
 * ecology

= Notes =

= References =
 * Sheley, Roger L., James, Jeremy J., Vasquez, Edward A., Svejcar, Tony J. (2011)Using Rangeland Health Assessment to Inform Successional Management, Invasive Plant Science and Management, 4:356-366.
 * Sheley, Roger, James, J., Smith, B., Vasquez, E. (2010). Applying Ecologically Based Invasive Plant Management, Rangeland Ecology and Management, 63:605-613.
 * Sheley, Roger L., James, Jeremy J., Bard, Erin C. (2009). Augmentative Restoration: Repairing Damaged Ecological Processes During Restoration of Heterogeneous Environments, Invasive Plant Science and Management, 2:10-21.
 * Clements, F. E., (1916). Plant succession: an analysis of the development of vegetation. Washington, DC, USA: Carnegie Institution of Washington,Publication No. 242. 512 p.
 * Dyksterhuis, E. J. (1949). Condition and management of rangeland based on quantitative ecology. Journal of Range Management 2:104–115.
 * Pellant, Pyke, Shaver, Herrick. (2005). Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health, BLM Reference 1734-6.
 * James, Jeremy J., Smith, Brenda S., Vasquez, Edward A., Sheley, Roger L. (2010). Principles for Ecologically Based Invasive Plant Management, Invasive Plant Science and Management, 3:229-239.
 * Pyke, D. A., M. PELLANT, P. SHAVER, AND J. E. HERRICK. (2002). Rangeland health attributes and indicators for qualitative assessment. Journal of Range Management 55:584–597.
 * Smith, Brenda, Sheley, Roger, James, Jeremy, Vasquez, ED. (2011). EBIPM Assessment Guidelines Putting Assessment to Work for More-Informed Land Management Decisions: A How-To Guide.
 * Luken, J. (1990). Directing ecological succession. New York, NY, USA: Chapman and Hall. 251 p.
 * Daehler, C. C. (2003). Performance comparisons of co-occurring native and alien invasive plants: Implications for conservation and restoration. Annual Review of Ecological Systems 34:183–211.
 * Picket, S. T. A., and White, P. S. (1985). The ecology of natural disturbance and patch dynamics. Orlando, FL, USA: Academic Press. 472 p.
 * Lozon, J. D., and MacIsaac, H. J. (1997). Biological invasions: are they dependent on disturbance? Environmental Reviews 5:131–144.
 * Sheley, R., Vasquez, E., James, J. and Smith, B. (2010). Applying Ecologically-Based Invasive Plant Management: An Introduction and OVerview.
 * D’Antonio, C., and L. A. Meyerson. (2002). Exotic plant species as problems and solutions in ecological restoration: A synthesis. Restoration Ecology 10:703–713.
 * Gross, K. L. (1980). Colonization by Verbascum thapsus (Mullein) in an old field in Michigan: experiments on the effects of vegetation. Journal of Ecology 68:919–927.
 * Gross, K. L. (1999). Mechanisms of colonization and species persistence in plant communities. In: W. R. Jordan, III, M. E. Gilpin, and J. D. Aber [EDS.]. Restoration ecology: a synthetic approach to ecological research. Cambridge,United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 171–188.
 * Gross, K. L., and Werner, P. A. (1982). Colonization abilities of ‘‘biennial’’ plant species in relation to ground cover: implications for their distribution in a successional sere. Ecology 62:921–931.
 * Davies, Kirk W., Sheley, Roger, L. (2007). A Conceptual Framework for Preventing the Spatial Dispersal of Invasive Plants. Weed Science 55:178-184.
 * Velagala, R. P., R. L. Sheley, and J. S. JACOBS. (1997). Influence of density on intermediate wheatgrass and spotted knapweed interference. Journal of Range Management 50:523–529.
 * Tilman, D. (1986). Resources, competition and the dynamics of plant communities. In: M. Crawley [ED.]. Plant ecology. Boston, MA, USA: Blackwell Scientific. p.51–75.
 * Larcher, W. (1995). Physiological plant ecology. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag.506 p.
 * Grime, J. P. (1977). Evidence for existence of three primary strategies in plants and its relevance to ecological and evolutionary theory. American Naturalist 11:1169–1194.
 * Crawley, M. J. (1997). Plant ecology. 2nd ed. Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell Science. 736 p.
 * Norton, J. B., T. A. Monaco, and U. Norton. (2007). Mediterranean annual grasses in western North America: kids in a candy store. Plant and Soil 298:1–5.
 * Suding, K. N., K. D. LeJeune, and T. R. Seastedt. (2004). Competitive impacts and responses of an invasive weed: dependencies on nitrogen and phosphorus availability. Oecologia 141:526–535.
 * James, J. J., Sheley, R. L., Vasquez, E. A., and Smith, B. S. (2010). Principles for Invasive Plant Management
 * Sheley, R., Smith, B., Reever-Morghan, K., and Svejcar, T. (2009). Adaptive Management for Invasive Annual Grasses: A Step-by-step User's Guide for Implementing EBIPM
 * Reever-Morghan, K. J., R. L. Sheley, and T. J. Svejcar. (2006). Successful adaptive management-the integration of research and management. Rangeland Ecology and Management 9:216–219.

= Further reading =

Step 1: Assessment

 * [http://sfc.smallfarmcentral.com/dynamic_content/uploadfiles/152/EBIPM%20assessment%20guide.pdf EBIPM Assessment Guidelines: Putting Assessment to Work for More-Informed Land

Management Decisions: A How-To Guide]
 * Researching Cultivation History: A Step-by-Step Guide to Obtaining Historical Records

Step 2: Causes of Invasion and Processes Not Functioning

 * Applying Ecologically-Based Invasive Plant Management: An Introduction and Overview

Step 3: Principles of Ecology

 * Ecological Principles for Invasive Plant Management

Step 4: Tools & Strategies

 * Establishing a Weed Prevention Area: A step-by-step user's guide
 * Grazing Invasive Annual Grasses: The Green and Brown Guide
 * Revegetation Guidelines for the Great Basin: Considering Invasive Weeds

Step 5: Adaptive Management

 * Adaptive Management for Invasive Annual Grasses: A Step-by-Step User's Guide

= External links =
 * EBIPM.org website
 * EBIPM User Guidelines
 * BLM National Training Center website

Associated EBIPM Videos

 * Implementing EBIPM: Science-Driven Invasive Plant Management
 * Implementing EBIPM In the Field: tackling invasive plants with science-based solutions
 * A Working Ranch with an effective medusahead management program