Abstract

Non-native invasive species are a threat to the diversity and success of native species. There have been many attempts to eradicate non-native invasive species and prevent re-invasion by restoring the habitat, but no method has been completely successful. Reinvasion is expected, unless all of the invasive plants are eradicated from the site and surrounding area. Successful restoration of the habitat after non-native invasive eradication involves restoring the overall diversity of the habitat as closely to the composition of the original habitat as possible. A long-term study began at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA) in 2008 to determine the effectiveness of three methods (mechanical, chemical, and a combination) for removing introduced and invasive species and for promoting native recovery. The treatments ended in 2013, and in 2014 the current study began to determine community assemblage after the cessation of the annual treatments. The original study was done with three 25 x 50 m blocks in both sites on the UNCA campus containing four 16.7 x 25 m plots for each treatment and a control. A nested design was used in this study to sample the herbaceous layer in the summers of 2014-15, where eight 4 m2 subplots were sampled within each larger 16.7 x 25 m treatment plot. A nested mixed models analysis was used to test the effect of treatment on the percent cover of both non-native and native species. Results suggest that some form of mechanical treatment is the most effective at reducing reinvasion of non-native species. The chemical treatment alone was not effective at the Pisgah Forest site, and was less effective at the Chestnut Ridge site than the mechanical and combination treatments. Mechanical treatments may be the most effective treatment of non-native invasive species in urban forests.

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