Abstrakt
Smith et al. (2015) recently proposed that weed risk assessment (WRA) systems "are unable to accurately address broad, intraspecific variation and that species introduced for agronomic purposes pose special limitations." This conclusion is drawn from their application of the Australian (A-WRA) and U.S. (US-WRA) weed risk assessment (WRA) systems to evaluate proposed bioenergy crops, cultivated crops, and known invasive nonnative plants. We do not believe that this conclusion is robust and question the approach and outcome of their comparative study.
Our view is that this study misrepresents the utility of WRA tools and, more broadly, might potentially hinder efforts to evaluate the invasion risk of nonnative plant species. Here we describe four key issues that limit the conclusions of the Smith et al. (2015) study.