Plan to Protect Environmental Assets from Lantana - Weeds Australia

Plan to Protect Environmental Assets from Lantana
6 Measuring the success of lantana management
Monitoring is the key to evaluating the success of lantana control programs and the recovery
of the environmental assets at risk. The Bitou Bush TAP monitoring guidelines (Hughes et al.
in press) will be adopted for this Plan. These monitoring guidelines provide standard methods,
across a range of differing resource and skill levels, to measure the response of the weed to
control and the response of the native plant species at risk (King and Downey 2008).
Unfortunately, these guidelines do not provide methods for monitoring fauna. Although the first
level of monitoring within the Bitou Bush TAP guidelines can accommodate some fauna
observations, a detailed monitoring technique for fauna is still required.
6.1 Monitoring the response of biodiversity
Monitoring is perhaps the most neglected aspect of weed control programs (Burley et al.
2008). For example, in Australia a review by Reid et al. (2008) established that, following the
management of WoNS, monitoring the response of plant communities was often not
undertaken. Where monitoring information has been collected, it is generally restricted to the
level of weed removal achieved, rather than the associated ecosystem response. However, to
determine the effectiveness of any weed control program, a monitoring program must be
developed and implemented. This is particularly important in natural areas to demonstrate that
public funds are being used efficiently.
Given that this Plan is focused on biodiversity at risk, monitoring must be tailored to those
assets identified and form part of the Australian Government Natural Resource Management
Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement Framework (see Commonwealth of
Australia 2009). Many variables can be measured and a number of monitoring techniques can
be used. The following measures should be considered at high-priority control sites:
the response of lantana (mature plants and seedlings) to the control program,
measured by consistent assessments of plant abundance and vigour, as well as
through regular observations from photo points, both before and after control
the response of the high-priority environmental assets to the control program,
measured by presence/absence of target species or similar measures (as described
for lantana above)
the response of other weed species to the control program
cost of control and monitoring.
Additional measures can help determine the effectiveness of control programs, with respect to
the broader invaded community, and should be collected, where resources are available, to
measure:
the response of a broader suite of native species (both plants and animals),
populations and ecological communities to the control program
the response of biological control agents, measured by the rate of attack and density
of the agents taken at regular intervals following control.
More comprehensive monitoring may occur in both managed and unmanaged areas (for
instance, in experimental control areas) in order to detect changes in lantana and native
species that can be attributed to the management program. A target for restoring invaded
areas can also be set. A target could be a historic condition of the plant community, before
lantana invasion; however, Chapman and Underwood (2000) suggested that, as ecological
systems do not stay constant, reference areas as well as experimental control areas may be
needed. Experimental control areas are sites that are similar to the area where weed control is
being undertaken, but that are not subjected to the weed management. Reference areas are
uninvaded natural areas that represent the native species restoration target following weed
management (Chapman 1999, Blossey 2004, Turner and Virtue 2006).
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