Flag for Taxon: reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| raymie | reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) |
many of the introduced listings are incorrect |
Dec. 17, 2021 15:58:38 +0000 | kevinfaccenda |
see comments |
Comments
If you can point me to a source for what you consider the correct establishment means status for various regions, I can try to correct them.
This is a complicated issue because the vast majority of reed canary grass in North America is an invasive strain, a native strain does exist, but it is apparently indistinguishable from the invasive one, and the invasive one is an important weed in wetland restoration projects
I was aware of two different strains for Phragmites australis, but didn't realize that Phalaris arundinacea had the same issue.
yeah it's a similar issue except the Phragmites can actually be told apart at least in some cases (it is now considered a different species in some treatments). Phalaris apparently can't. It causes us a problem with our wetland biocriteria... we have vast fields of clearly invasive Phalaris but then we encounter a few stems in a pristine wetland and can't tell if it's a new invasive species or a native species that belongs there.
Sounds like maybe Establishment Means should all just be set back to "Unknown"?
maybe. i'm not sure how else to do it. i usually assume invasive here but that isn't technically correct. Not sure there is, or should be, an option for 'both'. but in the case of not being able to tell unknown is correct for individual observations
I found a couple references that discuss its native status, https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/greatlakes/FactSheet.aspx?Species_ID=2938 and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-012-0300-3. Does not sound straight-forward, as the FEIS page says "Native populations of reed canarygrass that have not been exposed to gene flow from nonnative strains may no longer occur in North America. Additionally, morphological variability makes it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between native and nonnative populations [205]. Decisions to control populations of reed canarygrass may be based on its impacts in a given area rather than its ambiguous native status. "
Thanks @wisel, those are very helpful. My suggestion at this point would be to identify any regions where unambiguously native populations still exist, reset those regions to Native, and reset everything else to Unknown. And if there are any places where the species is unambiguously all introduced, those can then be set to Introduced.
Not something I have the resources to pursue right now myself, but that's the way I think it should go.
@wisel Is this issues still around? Or have you fixed it?
@kevinfaccenda I do not claim ownership of this issue and I have not made any changes. As discussed this is not an easy issue to address. I would feel comfortable updating Oregon status as that is my geographic focus, but it is already noted as "Unknown" establishment. OregonFlora which is our primary source for this type of information lists this as both native and exotic in Oregon.
Looking through the first 100 listings, all are introduced. I do not know how to see the remainder. Based on the conversations in this flag, a mechanism of introduced is the most reasonable if all native populations have hybridized with the invasive. I'm going to close this flag as trying to change the nativity status to native or unclear would be confusing and probably inaccurate, especially since the native form is rare to non-existant.
@jdmore