Tennessee Invaders Part IV

There are almost 500 non-native plants that now call Tennessee home. These plants threaten native Tennessee ecosystems. Detection and monitoring, of these species present tremendous challenges to conservation groups. As a first line of defense, organizations such as the Tennessee Invasive Plant Council (TN-IPC) work to list and rank non-native species. Up until recently, organizations such as these have relied heavily on expert opinion and experience to rank non-native species. However, with the onset of metadata technology, the ability to access large amounts of information has transformed the ways in which we might enhance our understanding of the threat non-native species pose across the landscape.

This expedition will assist University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate student Courtney Alley in collecting data for her thesis research that will utilize this advancement in technology to further our understanding of non-native plant species.  Ultimately, this information will be used to map the locations of these invasive plant species and eventually determine a pattern of spread throughout the state. With your help, we can use these data to develop more effective detection and monitoring techniques for non-native plants!

I would like to thank all the citizen scientists who have worked to complete these expeditions!  Even though this is the fourth Tennessee Invaders we have almost 300 species left until we have transcribed all the herbarium specimens for non-native plants in Tennessee!  Keep up the hard work!

— Courtney Alley, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga