INTRODUCTION

This year, we learned about a great variety of projects from around the United States and internationally that are developing protocols, technologies, and tools for improving collection, management, standardization, and exchange of invasive species information. Members can download each of the presentations that were given this year can from the ISWG Downloads page (currently available to members only) and minutes from our discussions are also available for download from the GISIN Invasive Species Community. Here's a quick update for those of you that missed out on some of these interesting discussions:

* For more information about any of these presentations, please contact the authors.

Download this summary (PDF)

SUMMARY

January - Kelly Gravuer (Botanical Research Associate) reported on NatureServe's invasive species work on Impact Assessment, Early Detection, and Data Sharing. Kelly outlined NatureServe's work on an Invasive Species Assessment Protocol and I-Rank system that focuses on assessing impacts to native biodiversity; an Early Detection Protocol for the Blue Ridge Parkway (in partnership with the National Park Service); and development of an Observations Data Standard and 'Kestrel' - NatureServe's Web Application for Observations Data Management http://www.natureserve.org

Reference (PDF) : Morse, L.E., J.M. Randall, N. Benton, R. Hiebert, and S. Lu. 2004. An Invasive Species Assessment Protocol: Evaluating Non-Native Plants for their Impact on Biodiversity. Version 1. NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia.

February - Randy Westbrooks (Invasive Species Prevention Specialist, U.S. Geological Survey ) and Les Mehrhoff (IPANE Project Manager) reported on the U.S. National Early Detection and Rapid Response System for Invasive Plants and the processes, roles, and tools developed to build a system with a goal of preventing the establishment and spread of new invasive plants in managed areas and natural ecosystems in the United States.

References : Invasive Plant Atlas of New England (IPANE); Invasive Plant Atlas of the MidSouth (IPAMS).

March - Annie Simpson (NBII) reported on the results of the Global Invasive Species Information Network (GISIN) Needs Assessment Survey that received 136 responses from representatives in 41 countries. The vast majority of respondents identified themselves as both providers and consumers of invasive alien species data and said they seek species profile and checklist information, filtering their search for this information mainly by scientific name. Most respondents were not technology experts, and for example, were unaware of the level of web services their organization provides and/or uses. http://www.gisinetwork.org/Survey/SurveyResultsFinal.htm

April - We heard from Dr. John Madsen (Associate Extension/Research Professor, Geosystems Research Institute) on the U.S. Geological Survey - Mississippi State University partnership on development of the Cactus Moth Detection and Monitoring Network including project coordination, process, and the network components - Early Detection Network for Cactus Moth; Surveys for native pricklypear cactus; Predictive mapping of pricklypear cactus populations; Extension publications; and a Web-based database and ArcIMS map. http://www.gri.msstate.edu/research/cmdmn/

May - Debbie Oyarzun (Alberta Agriculture, Food, and Rural Development) presented on behalf of the Interdepartmental Invasive Alien Species Working Group (IASWG) on the Alberta Risk Assessment Tool: Assessing Risk--Prioritizing Response. Debbie outlined Alberta's policy and operation approaches to IAS, and on how the IASWG is working to fulfill its purpose and mandates to coordinate, align & consolidate legislation, policies, programs, communications, and partnerships; develop a Risk Management Framework Risk assessment tool (R.A.T.); provide recommendations; and implement a national strategy, action plans, etc.

June - Cyndy Parr (SPIRE, UMBC ) spoke to us about Semantic Ecoblogging: Models and Tools for Biological Observation including ELVIS (the Ecosystem Location Visualization and Information System) - a suite of tools motivated by the belief that food web structure plays a role in the success or failure of potential species invasions; the ETHAN Ontology - a utility that extracts part of an evolutionary ontology given a scientific name; Swoogle (Google for the semantic web) - a tool that crawls and indexes RDF documents; Flickr - a tool that geotags pictures; and Splickr - a Flickr/Yahoo maps mashup to find pictures of species in a given geographic area. Future plans include holding more blogger bioblitzes and working with children in making semantic eco-blogging easier. http://spire.umbc.edu/

July - Annette Olson (NBII) gave us a live web presentation on new developments in the NBII Digital Image Library - a rapidly growing online biological image library that not only serves as an image source for a variety of users such as invasive species scientists, but also a repository for legacy and research collections. http://life.nbii.gov/dml/home.do

August - We heard from Chuck Bargeron (University of Georgia - Bugwood Network, Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health) on the EDDMapS or Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System that provides distributions of invasive plants across the south; an electronic early detection system to allow for more rapid responses; and large scale cooperative management of new invasive species. http://www.eddmaps.org/

September - Deanne DiPietro (Sonoma Ecology Center) reported on GeoWeed - Improving Weed Data Collection to Support Multiple End-Uses. GeoWeed is a tool for use on handheld devices for collection invasive species field data that is based on the TNC WIMS tool. It supports data capture, error detection and aggregation. Deanne described the process and components of the tool, which include a desktop user interface. She also described plans for regional invasive species data integration. http://geoweed.org/

October - The group gave round robin reports and held a general discussion about the value and availability of species lists and their usefulness for invasive species modeling.

November - We received an update from Catherine Jarnevich and Greg Newman (USGS National Institute of Invasive Species Science), on progress in building the Global Organism Detection and Monitoring System (GODM). The presentation included updates on new tools available for citizen scientists and others, to customize their data uploads to the NIISS. There are now six methods for data upload, ranging from single point entries by zooming in on a map, to batch uploads of information by mapping data providers' fields to the GODM system. The GODM also supports data collection using PDAs to collect and upload their data directly to the Data Commons.

Reference : Jim Graham, Greg Newman, Catherine Jarnevich, Rick Shory, and Thomas J. Stohlgren. A global organism detection and monitoring system for non-native species. Ecological Informatics Volume 2, Issue 2, 1 June 2007, Pages 177-183.

December - ISWG Adjourned.