Biological Invasions (2016) 18, 2739-2747

Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, Laura A. Meyerson and Kristen C. Hychka (2016)
From restoration to adaptation: the changing discourse of invasive species management in coastal New England under global environmental change
Biological Invasions 18 (9), 2739-2747
Abstract: Scholars have focused on militaristic metaphors of invasion for more than a decade, but few if any studies look to the on-the-ground language of restoration practitioners to determine how they talk about invasive species. Here we demonstrate the absence of militaristic metaphors in one subset of restoration managers in coastal Rhode Island who manage for introduced Phragmites australis, the highly invasive common reed. Instead, these managers frame their discussions of Phragmites in terms of indicators of condition, ecosystem services, and resilience, which might indicate a shift away from command-and-control models of invasive species management. We suggest that qualitative research, including interviews with restoration managers, can offer a useful, in depth view onto issues of management and decision making and that it is crucially important to attend to the language of invasion science and management in an era of global change. Ecological changes in coastal ecosystems seem to impact managers' language choices, while these language choices, in turn, can have far-reaching impacts on decision making in coastal systems.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Laura A. Meyerson

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
general biology - morphology - evolution

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Phragmites australis (weed)