What managers want from invasive species research--and what they actually get

Background/Question/Methods

Many conservation disciplines may suffer from a knowing-doing gap, where scientific research is not used to inform management decisions. In 2012, we documented the existence of a knowing-doing gap in invasion biology by surveying 200+ California land managers who have decision-making power over invasive plant management at preserves, parks, and other wildlands. Part of that survey asked managers to designate the research topics or questions they thought would be most useful to management. For the present study, we searched the recent invasive plant literature for relevance to those manager-identified topics. We examined five years' worth of content in the 20 journals that publish the most invasive species research for articles of potential relevance to our manager population, based on three criteria: a) work in California field sites, b) work by California authors, or c) investigation of one of California's most impactful plant invaders. The resulting set of 600+ articles was then read by at least two researchers independently, and classified according to research topic, scope and type of scientific work, and attention to management implications.

Results/Conclusions

Preliminary results suggest that the invasion literature has only moderate relevance to management needs. Managers desired field experiments at longer terms and at larger scales than was typical of the literature. Few published studies commented on the management implications of findings, and even fewer compared costs or even mentioned cost as a factor, though this issues looms large for managers. Several species, like cheatgrass, are extremely well-studied, at the expense of lesser-known but equally detrimental invaders about whom even basic life history is unknown. Managers' concerns about the consequences of management actions on other species, and the potential costs and benefits of neglecting control of particularly intractable invaders, are also poorly represented in the literature.