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 Boating Bonanza: Paddler at Georgetown Lake Help Prevent Aquatic Invaders!
Georgetown, Montana – What could be better than spending a sunny summer weekend at Georgetown Lake? Why, protecting our favorite paddling waters from aquatic invasive species (AIS), of course! AIS are most often moved between waterbodies unintentionally by hitching a ride on our boats and watersports gear. And by “boat” we mean all kinds of vessels, from motorboats, jet skis, and rafts to stand-up paddle boards, kayaks, and canoes. Invasive species don’t discriminate! Once AIS are introduced, they are extremely hard to remove and can drastically change the waters we love to recreate on. They harm ecosystems, prevent boats from navigating, and invasive mussels leave behind piles of sharp shells that can cut bare feet and even neoprene!
When: August 3-4, 2024
 NAISMA is coming to Montana!
The North American Invasive Species Management Association (NAISMA) is coming to Montana this fall. The NAISMA conference is Sept 30 – Oct 3 in Missoula.
NAISMA is the leading forum to connect invasive species management, science, policy, and outreach efforts regarding aquatic and terrestrial plants, animals, insects, pests, and pathogens.
This year's conference is packed with educational sessions, networking opportunities, and engaging experiences planned for attendees.
Who attends? Noxious weed and invasive species coordinators, land managers, agriculture and natural resource professionals, researchers, students, foresters, environmental consultants, private landowners, conservation group leaders, and non-governmental organizations.
Thanks to a grant from the Noxious Weed Trust Fund, Montana Extension agents, Weed Districts, and Conservation District staff and board members can take advantage of a free registration. Learn more here...
Plant Identification Apps for your Smartphone: 2024 Update
Smartphone apps are available for almost anything these days, including plant identification. Plant ID apps are a helpful tool to have in your botanical toolbox. There are two broad categories of these apps.
Some plant ID apps function somewhat like a traditional key in that they require the user to enter information about the plant in question (picture, left) and based on the information the app lists plants that fit the criteria. Two apps in this category that are especially useful in Montana include Montana Grasses and Wildflowers of Montana/Montana Wildflowers. The identifications from these apps are only as accurate as the information entered; make sure to only choose a characteristic that fits your plant if you are certain you are correct.
Continue reading…
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Whats at stake as Idaho evaluates mussel eraducation effort
Invasive quagga mussels were found in Idaho for the first time last fall. The state has been trying to get rid of them, but if it’s not successful, the mussels could have widespread and expensive consequences.
Michael Stephenson has spent years worrying about a tiny invasive creature smaller than a fingernail. Then, last fall, they arrived. The larval form of quagga mussels and one adult were found in the Snake River near Twin Falls. Continue reading...
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Rachel Cohen / Boise State Public Radio
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 Watercraft Inspection:
- All watercraft inspection stations are now open for the season. Refer to the FWP AIS website more information on inspection station locations and hours of operation.
- Over 49,000 watercraft have been inspected so far this season with 28 mussel fouled vessels intercepted to date and 205 with aquatic weeds. See table here for details on mussel fouled vessels.
- Fishing tournament organizers are helping ensure out-of-state participants are inspected prior to launching in Montana through education and verification of inspection. FWP staff are calling out-of-state participants this season to ensure they are aware of Montana’s inspection and prevention pass requirements. Staff report anglers are overwhelmingly supportive of the AIS prevention effort.
- The watercraft inspection dashboard is now up and running and will be updated weekly.
- More information on watercraft inspection station operations can be found here: Watercraft Inspection Info.
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Mussels found on a pontoon boat bound for Idaho. Boat was intercepted at the Wibaux Watercraft Inspection Station
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 National EDRR Framework Webinar Recording
The Department of the Interior hosted an informational webinar on June 27th to discuss efforts to advance a National Early Detection and Rapid Response Framework for invasive species.
Watch Recording: Click
Password: .a^SKH5K
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We are family: close relatives of invasive species are more likely to be invasive themselves
Written by: Dan Buonaiuto, edited by Sarah Bois
Weed risk assessments (WRAs) are tools used to regulate imported plants and quantify the risk that a new species may become invasive. All WRAs include a series of yes/no or ranked questions about the biology, ecology, and distribution of the species of interest, though the specific formats of these protocols vary substantially among the governments and agencies that administer them. As such, they have a mixed track record for successfully identifying new invaders. A new study by Buonaiuto et al. suggests that improving the general effectiveness of WRAs begins with evaluating the effectiveness of each of their criteria.
Many WRA include a screening question about whether a species has close relatives that are already invasive. However, we don’t know how helpful this information actually is, and we don’t know which levels of taxonomy (e.g., genus or family) are the best for predicting risk. To answer these questions, the authors of this study ran several phylogenetic analyses and developed a series of statistical models that predicted how likely a species was to be invasive if it had known invasive species in its family or genus; or if its closest relative was invasive.
The authors found that invasive plants were more likely to be closely related to each other than chance would have it, and that including information about species relatedness in models improved their ability to predict invasion risk. Models that included information on whether or not a species had other invasive species in its genus, and whether or not its closest relative was invasive performed the best. The authors suggest that because genus-level information is easiest to obtain, questions about taxonomic relatedness at the genus-level are best for WRAs. The authors also highlighted that none of their models were able to properly quantify invasion risk in particularly small or large genera, which indicates that there is a need for plant regulators and evolutionary biologists to increase collaborations in order to develop new screening tools for invasive species.
Take home points:
- Invasive plants are likely to be closely related to each other.
Management Implications:
- Asking whether a plant species of interest has an invasive congener is a useful question in Weed Risk Assessments
Ornamental invaders are too close for comfort
Written by Eve Beaury, edited by Bethany Bradley
Many invasive species are expanding into new locations, including the Northeast, with climate change. Previous research by the RISCC leadership team has shown that horticultural trade is one of the primary vectors that could unwittingly facilitate this movement. To assess the extent of this risk, Beaury et al. (2023) compared the distribution of ornamental sales of 89 invasive plants to locations where these species are currently invasive as well as to locations where these species could pose future risk with climate change. The study found substantial evidence that invasive species are sold as ornamentals near existing invasions, including cases in which an invasion was less than 1 kilometer from a plant nursery offering that species for sale. Nearly all of the studied species had at least one nursery offering the species within its current invaded range (estimated using species distribution models). 25 invasive species had at least one nursery located in an area that is not currently suitable for invasion, but could become suitable with climate change. Horticulture therefore presents a major risk of facilitating invasions under current climate as well as seeding future invasions with climate change - including providing propagule pressure to existing invasions, the infilling of species ranges under current climate, and the expansion of species ranges with climate change. To reduce these risks, we need to expand the scale at which we manage introductions from horticultural trade.
Take-home points:
- An easy first step to stop the harm caused by invasive species is to stop planting them in our backyards. Beaury et al. (2023) identified species and locations where we can do a better job at reducing invasive plant spread from horticulture.
- The distance between an observed invasion and a nursery selling that species varied from <1km to 4000km, highlighting room for improvement as well as lower risk horticultural introductions.
- Some ornamental invasive plants have a particularly high risk of expanding quickly as the climate changes, including tree-of-heaven, callery pear, and other species in RISCC’s ‘Do Not Sell’ Management Challenge.
Management implications:
- The plant nursery industry has expanded its geographic reach to increase invasion risk at distances representative of ‘down-the road’ and across the country. We need to respond by expanding the scale at which we manage invasion risk from horticulture.
- It’s never too early to start working with industry partners to prevent the next wave of invasions. Resources like RISCC’s ‘Do Not Sell’ Management Challenge can be used to inform nurseries on species to avoid.
- Climate watch lists could also identify species that are particularly likely to expand quickly via horticultural trade.
Non-native plants and animals expanding ranges 100-times faster than native species, finds new research
An international team of scientists has recently found that non-native species are expanding their ranges many orders of magnitude faster than native ones, in large part due to inadvertent human help. Even seemingly sedentary non-native plants are moving at three times the speed of their native counterparts in a race where, because of the rapid pace of climate change and its effect on habitat, speed matters.
To survive, plants and animals need to be shifting their ranges by 3.25 kilometers per year just to keep up with the increasing temperatures and associated climactic shifts—a speed that native species cannot manage without human help. Continue reading…
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