Roadways are increasingly recognized as common points of entry for non-native species into natural habitats in mountainous areas. Studies were conducted within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem from 2003 to 2007 to evaluate (1) landscape scale patterns of non-native plant richness along roadways, and (2) local scale factors influencing native and nonnative plant richness and cover, and surrogate nonnative plant (SNP) emergence in an invaded habitat. At the landscape scale, non-native plant richness decreased with increased elevation and increased distance from the road, and was positively correlated to the proportion of plots with signs of disturbance. Non-native plant richness also varied by habitat type: sagebrush steppe had the highest and alpine the lowest. At the local scale, in sagebrush steppe, SNP emergence was negatively associated with increased distance from the road, and percent cover of litter was positively associated with SNP emergence. The proportion of non-native plant cover and richness decreased, while the proportion of native cover and native species richness increased with distance from road. Our study suggests that landscape scale variables such as elevation and habitat type influence non-native plant success, and that while local conditions adjacent to the road may be favorable for non-native plants, factors which vary at the local scale can also effect non-native plant establishment away from the roadside. This highlights the need for studies to evaluate multiple scales when assessing patterns and processes driving non-native plant invasions, and suggests that sagebrush steppe may be resistant to invasion as long as it remains undisturbed.

Cover crops represent a potentially important biological filter during weed community assembly in agroecosystems. This filtering could be considered directional if different cover-crop species result in weed communities with predictably different species composition. We examined the following four questions related to the potential filtering effects of cover crops in a field experiment involving five cover crops grown in monoculture and mixture: (1) Do cover crops differ in their effect on weed community composition? (2) Is competition more intense between cover crops and weeds that are in the same family or functional group? (3) Is competition more intense across weed functional types in a cover-crop mixture compared with cover crops grown in monocultures? (4) Within a cover-crop mixture, is a higher seeding rate associated with more effective biotic filtering of the weed community? We found some evidence that cover crops differentially filtered weed communities and that at least some of these filtering effects were due to differential biomass production across cover-crop species. Monocultures of buckwheat and sorghum–sudangrass reduced the number of weed species relative to the no-cover-crop control by an average of 36 and 59% (buckwheat) and 25 and 40% (sorghum–sudangrass) in 2011 and 2012, respectively. We found little evidence that competition intensity was dependent upon the family or functional classification of the cover crop or weeds, or that cover-crop mixtures were stronger assembly filters than the most effective monocultures. Although our results do not suggest that annual cover crops exert strong directional filtering during weed community assembly, our methodological framework for detecting such effects could be applied to similar future studies that incorporate a greater number of cover-crop species and are conducted under a greater range of cover-cropping conditions.

Human activities, from resource extraction to recreation, are increasing global connectivity, especially to less-disturbed and previously inaccessible places. Such activities necessitate road networks and vehicles. Vehicles can transport reproductive plant propagules long distances, thereby increasing the risk of invasive plant species transport and dispersal. Subsequent invasions by less desirable species have significant implications for the future of threatened species and habitats. The goal of this study was to understand vehicle seed accrual by different vehicle types and under different driving conditions, and to evaluate different mitigation strategies. Using studies and experiments at four sites in the western USA we addressed three questions: How many seeds and species accumulate and are transported on vehicles? Does this differ with vehicle type, driving surface, surface conditions, and season? What is our ability to mitigate seed dispersal risk by cleaning vehicles? Our results demonstrated that vehicles accrue plant propagules, and driving surface, surface conditions, and season affect the rate of accrual: on- and off-trail summer seed accrual on all-terrain vehicles was 13 and 3508 seeds km, respectively, and was higher in the fall than in the summer. Early season seed accrual on 4-wheel drive vehicles averaged 7 and 36 seeds km on paved and unpaved roads respectively, under dry conditions. Furthermore, seed accrual on unpaved roads differed by vehicle type, with tracked vehicles accruing more than small and large 4-wheel drives; and small 4-wheel drives more than large. Rates were dramatically increased under wet surface conditions. Vehicles indiscriminately accrue a wide diversity of seeds (different life histories, forms and seed lengths); total richness, richness of annuals, biennials, forbs and shrubs, and seed length didn't differ among vehicle types, or additional seed bank samples. Our evaluation of portable vehicle wash units showed that approximately 80% of soil and seed was removed from dirty vehicles. This suggests that interception programs to reduce vehicular seed transportation risk are feasible and should be developed for areas of high conservation value, or where the spread of invasive species is of special concern.

Summary Heterogeneous field conditions are ubiquitous throughout agricultural systems and have given rise to the practice of site‐specific management, in an effort to increase sustainability and/or homogenise growing conditions and thereby increase crop yields. The spatial pattern of weeds in conventional systems is widely accepted to be aggregated, but there have been no scientific studies regarding the spatial pattern of weed distribution in organic systems. Using a combination of aggregation measures and quadrat variance techniques, this study compared the spatial pattern of weed distribution in conventionally managed no‐tillage spring wheat fields to those of organically managed spring wheat fields. Per cent weed cover data (by species) were collected in the summers of 2005 and 2006 from transects located in conventional no‐tillage and organic spring wheat fields. Weed cover was aggregated in both the conventional and the organic systems, but the patterns of aggregation were different for the two systems. Conventional no‐tillage systems showed a patch/gap pattern, while organic systems showed multiple scales of patchiness with few gaps. These results suggest that processes causing aggregation in the two systems may be different and that site‐specific management may be applicable to organic systems as well as conventional spring wheat systems.

Summary The presence of weeds in crop fields often causes yield reductions. However, the effects of weed diversity have not been fully examined. This study tested the hypothesis that, holding density constant, increased weed species richness would decrease the effects of competition on spring wheat target plant performance. Measurements were taken from circular neighbourhoods (16.5 cm radius) with a single spring wheat plant surrounded by combinations of Setaria viridis, Avena fatua, Kochia scoparia, Thlaspi arvense and spring wheat plants, representing all combinations of neighbour species at four density levels. Using regression models, we found that species richness had no significant direct effect on spring wheat biomass, yield, or relative growth rate and that there were no significant neighbour species interaction terms. For weedy target plants, the presence of negative interaction terms suggested that increasing species richness had negative effects on growth of individual weed species. Additional analysis suggested that increased species richness may limit competitive ability of dominant weeds. Although we found no evidence of a direct effect of weed species richness on crop performance, increased weed species richness had no negative effect on spring wheat performance. Further, species richness of the weed community appears to influence weedy plant performance, which may offer a future opportunity to influence crop performance.