About the meeting
We appreciate the research community's efforts to enhance understanding of invasive species and their ecological relationships.
Biological control is one component of an Integrated Weed Management strategy commonly employed to mitigate the impact of invasive species across our native landscapes. The invasion of non-indigenous plant species throughout North America has been recognized as a serious threat to ecosystem integrity. Non-native invasive plants are threatening ecological integrity and biological diversity across the landscape by displacing native vegetation. Biological control can be an effective tool in an integrated, long-term approach to managing noxious and invasive weeds.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contributes to several research entities to further our understanding of invasive species and to find new ways to assist in the management and control of these species. The BLM contribution helps to identify new biological control agents, improve the effectiveness of invasive species control and management and develop effective ways to restore infested lands. The BLM also uses this annual meeting to improve coordination and collaboration between researchers and managers regarding new information available in biological control research. In addition, the annual meeting serves as a method of obtaining an annual report from all the research cooperators that we provide with funds for continued research as part of their cooperative agreement.
The 2009 annual meeting included presentations from the USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Sidney and Albany; USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Montana and Albany; US Forest Service (USFS) in Bozeman, CABI of Switzerland, Lethbridge Research Center, Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman and Corvallis, Wyoming Weed and Pest in Fremont and Big Horn counties, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) at Red Rock Lakes Refuge and the Statewide Noxious Weed Awareness and Education Campaign.
The Center for Invasive Plant Management at MSU is hosting the web posting of the presentations and publications to further the information sharing among researchers, land managers and other interested publics.