Estimating detectability to address alien plant incursions

I’ve contributed a small section to the recently published Detecting and Responding to Alien Plant Incursions. This volume addresses the full continuum of management from pre-border efforts through early detection to selecting management options and overarching governance. It’s a synthesis of the literature that will be of value to researchers. More importantly, it’s framed as guidance to the land managers and policy makers who are responsible for addressing these threats.

The break-out box that Joslin Moore and I were invited to write regards detectability, and how we can go about estimating it experimentally. This process calls on statistics and experimental design, tempered with biosecurity concerns and our desire to accurately simulate real survey conditions. Throughout, we’ve used examples from our hawkweed detection experiments to demonstrate how we’ve made these trade-offs ourselves. We were also able to include a couple of lovely photographs taken by Roger Cousens during our field work.

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Hauser C.E. & Moore J.L. (2016) Estimating detectability using search experiments, in Detecting and Responding to Alien Plant Incursions, eds Wilson, J., Panetta, F.D. & Lindgren, C. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, pp 71-75.

Sally, Connor & volunteer teams are a triple threat for hawkweeds

A year ago I posted about the formidable Hawkweed Eradication Program, which is primarily focused on the Alpine National Park of south-eastern Australia. All summer parks staff, private contractors and volunteers scour likely locations to weed out Hieracium species. Detector dogs Sally and Connor are now very much part of the action, too!

Last week we gathered in Falls Creek to evaluate Sally and Connor’s search skills in the Victorian environment. We sent them – plus a team of the High Plains’ proud volunteer searchers – to some specially selected plots where live hawkweeds were known to be hiding. The three search teams found almost all of those known plants, and additionally spotted several undocumented infestations!

It was good news for us, and the program even made the news. (For example, you can check out an article in The Age, an ABC Goulburn Murray audio interview and video.) While Sally’s always ready with a smile for the camera, her human colleagues are quick to tell journalists about all the agencies who make this program possible: this time Australian Alps National Parks, Parks Victoria, Victorian Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport & Resources, NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, and dog trainer Steve Austin. My Australian Research Council and University of Melbourne support is now boosted by freshly-enrolled Monash University PhD student Emma Bennett – this time next year she’ll be leading our survey evaluation and research.