Scope: Assessment of “known knowns” (i.e., incomplete information) to help calibrate efforts to reduce risk uncertainty for non-established pests and predict pest impact. The purpose of Part 2 of the survey is to use expert information to fill the gap, with your help. We have selected the participants in this survey carefully from researchers and practitioners in pathology, silviculture, and genetics from across North America. Future surveys will target international expertise on nonestablished pests.Please follow a link to your expertise area to begin the survey.
Overall Goal: Collect preliminary information on social and ecological impacts to seed a discussion of a multidimensional risk assessment system (Part 2 of the survey, see below).
Invasive pathogens cause serious disruption to forest systems in North America. There are opportunities for both mitigation, and engagement with stakeholders at every stage of the invasion curve from pre-introduction, to establishment, to outbreak. As a proactive approach, risk assessment is the earliest opportunity to engage to ensure there are relationships in place with stakeholders to ensure meaningful and effective mitigation of impacts. The prediction and mitigation of impacts are limited by the “training set” of known impacts of established, invasive organisms; and complicated by the question of how to assess impacts while accounting for the functionally diverse ecological and social dimensions of forest systems and values people place on them, which are not currently captured by risk assessment frameworks. Furthermore, various communities of practice (e.g., basic research, monitoring, management, biosecurity, extension, production vs. conservation, etc.) focus efforts on specific types pests (i.e., oomycetes, insects, fungi), forest systems (i.e., pines, hardwoods), and stages in the invasion process. The long-term aim, of which this survey is a preliminary part (and accompanying workshop) is to build a framework to strategize how embed stakeholders and practitioners into a common network to ensure that relationships are in place for collaborative prioritization of pests in risk assessment based on diverse value systems and impacts.
We have identified two critical areas where we can reduce uncertainy for invasive pests already in North America.
Consider and contribute to a “working” list of invasive forest pathogens in North America, along with relevant information on biology, invasion history and status, and hosts and forests impacted/threatened, and apply a preliminary framework to assess: a) impacts to date, and b) expected impacts in the future. **by subject area expert; preliminary responses will be collected through an online survey app.
Suggested examples of types of impacts
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Social (social sciences “hat”) |
Species (organismal biology “hat”) |
Community (ecologist “hat”) |
Ecosystem functioning and services (environmental science “hat”)
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Economic (specify) Lifeways Non-timber Markets Management costs Provisioning Cultural or
intrinsic |
Near-extinction Productivity (growth) Reproduction Range contractions/local extirpation Decline Susceptibility to other stressors (biotic or abiotic) |
Plant diversity Overall biodiversity (general or examples) Short-term perturbation Shifts in forest type Structure Composition |
Nutrient cycling Erosion Hydrology Carbon Heat Soil insolation |