Get reliable rangeland science

Rangelands represent the dominant land use systems in many countries of the world and provide sociological and cultural benefits to millions of people in both rural and urban areas. The undesirable impacts of rangeland weeds have been recognized for well over 100 years and infest between 41 and 51 million ha of public and private land. Invasive plant management has often focused on control of single species without regard to the unintended consequences of the control method. A more appropriate approach to invasive plant management is to evaluate the ecological mechanisms and processes that favor their success and develop management strategies that promote maximum functionality, ecosystem services, and resilience to reinvasion. Global trends suggest that many, if not most, ecosystems are novel and have an altered structure and function with new combinations of species. The challenge for land managers in the future will be to determine what degrees or types of changes are considered beneficial, while avoiding actions that create bigger problems and further ecosystem degradation. Given this high level of uncertainty, we sought to identify some of the major conceptual advances in invasive species management that have occurred during the past 25 years and explore way to proactively apply them to rangelands that fall under the umbrella of novel ecosystems.