Plant invasions in protected areas: outlining the issues and creating the links

There are numerous excellent volumes on the topic of biological invasions, some of which deal with conservation-related issues to varying degrees. Almost 30 years since the last global assessment of alien plant invasions in protected areas during the SCOPE programme of the 1980s, the present book aims to provide a synthesis of the current state of knowledge of problems with invasive plants in protected areas. To set the scene we outline some of the major challenges facing the field of invasion biology. We discuss the extent and dimensions of problems that managers of protected areas deal with and what can be learnt from research and management interventions conducted in protected areas. A virtual tour through different regions of the world sheds light on the rapidly growing knowledge base in different socio-geographical settings, and applies such insights to the problems that managers face. We hope that this book captures the core concerns and creates the critical links that will be needed if the growing impacts of alien plant invasions on protected areas are to be managed effectively. We also aim to promote the role of protected areas as leaders and catalysts of global action on invasive species, and key study areas for basic and applied invasion science.We thank Dan Simberloff for his support for this book. LCF thanks South African National Parks for supporting work on this book and for general support. LCF and DMR thank the Centre for Invasion Biology, the National Research Foundation (South Africa) and Stellenbosch University for support. PP was supported by long-term research development project no. RVO 67985939 (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), institutional resources of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, and acknowledges the support by Praemium Academiae award from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. We thank Zuzana Sixtova´ for technical assistance with editing