Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Frequency Of Invasive Plant Occurrence Is Not A Suitable Proxy For Abundance In The Northeast United States, Tyler Cross, John T. Finn, Bethany A. Bradley

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Measuring and predicting invasive plant abundance is critical for understanding impacts on ecosystems and economies. Although spatial abundance datasets remain rare, occurrence datasets are increasingly available across broad regional scales. We asked whether the frequency of these point occurrences can be used as a proxy for abundance of invasive plants. We compiled both occurrence and abundance data for 13 regionally important invasive plants in the northeast United States from herbarium records and several contributed distribution datasets. We integrated all available abundance information based on infested area, stem count, percent cover, or qualitative descriptions into abundance rankings ranging from 0 (absent) …