The proposed workshop will bring together investigators who have been funded by either the National Science Foundation's Ecological Biology Program or the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Biology of Weedy and Invasive Plant NRI Program to conduct basic or applied research identifying the mechanisms that facilitate the invasion of exotic species into intact or disturbed ecosystems and to understand the ecological consequences of such invasions. This meeting will help investigators to coordinate and to enhance current and/or future federally funded projects that address the challenges in understanding and managing invasive species. During this two-day workshop, to be held in Washington, D.C., investigators will aim to define emerging research priorities and frontiers in the ecology and management of invasive species. The intellectual goals of the workshop including broadening understanding of the scientific approaches, tools, needs, and prospects for the efficient management of non-native plant invasions.
The broader impacts of the proposed research include the facilitation of interdisciplinary cooperation and research tools among investigators and to communicate to the scientific community the priorities for research and management that are identified by the participants in the workshop. Specifically, the participants will be challenged: 1) to identify and to prioritize the critical questions in basic and applied ecological research that must be answered before management of invasive species and invasions in general can be successful; 2) to identify the respective roles of the NRI and NSF Programs in achieving goal #1.
