Exotic Plants in Alaska's Parks

摘要

The summer of 2004 marked the fifth year of surveys for exotic (non-na-tive) plants on National Park Service (NPS) lands in Alaska. These surveys provide baseline data on exotics in the parks, and help in formulating a long-term monitoring and controlplan for exotic plants in Alaska's NPS units. These species are a concern to resource managers because they threaten the genetic integrity of native flora through hybridization, can monopolize limited resources for resident plant species, and can changethe structure and function of ecosystems through alterations of geochemical and geophysical processes. Invasive exotic plants cause billions of dollars' worth of economic loss in the lower forty-eight states every year. By 1996, exotic plant species had infested an estimated seven million acres of NPS lands nationally, with 4,600 acres of new infestations occurring daily.