Global Invader Impact Network (GIIN): toward standardized evaluation of the ecological impacts of invasive plants

Abstract

The ecological impacts of most invasive plants have not been studied experimentally, and most research to date focuses on few types of impacts, which can vary greatly among studies. Our aim was to propose a standard methodology for quantifying baseline ecological impact that, in theory, is scalable to any terrestrial plant invader (e.g., annual grasses to trees) and any invaded system (e.g., grassland to forest).

The Global Invader Impact Network (GIIN) is a coordinated distributed experiment composed of an observational and manipulative methodology.

Keywords

• Coordinated distributed experiment
• impact assessment
• invasive plants
• meta-analysis
• natural experiment
• research network
• research protocol