Although estimates vary, there is a broad agreement that invasive species impose major costs on the U.S. economy, as well as posing risks to nonmarket environmental goods and services and to public health. The domestic effort to manage risks associated with invasive species is coordinated by the National Invasive Species Council (NISC), which is charged with developing a science-based process to evaluate risks associated with the introduction and spread of invasive species. Various international agreements have also elevated invasive species issues onto the international policy agenda. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement establishes rights and obligations to adhere to the discipline of scientific risk assessment to ensure that SPS measures are applied only to the extent required to protect human, animal, and plant health, and do not constitute arbitrary or unjustifiable technical barriers to trade. Currently, however, the field of risk assessment for invasive species is in its infancy. Therefore, there is a pressing need to formulate scientifically sound methods and approaches in this emerging field, while acknowledging that the demand for situation-specific empirical evidence is likely to persistently outstrip supply. To begin addressing this need, the Society for Risk Analysis Ecological Risk Assessment Specialty Group and the Ecological Society of America Theoretical Ecology Section convened a joint workshop to provide independent scientific input into the formulation of methods and processes for risk assessment of invasive species to ensure that the analytic processes used domestically and internationally will be firmly rooted in sound scientific principles.

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I made measurements of morphology and settling velocity on seeds of 19 species of wind-dispersed Asteraceae. From the morphological measurements I calculated Reynolds numbers and approximate plume loadings for the species. Diaspore settling velocity increases linearly with the square root of plume loading. This relationship varies among species and among subfamilies, but not among life history types. Reynolds number is highly variable among subfamilies, less so within subfamilies. Diaspores with beaked achenes have significantly lower settling velocities than diaspores with unbeaked achenes, even though beaked and unbeaked achenes do not differ in plume loading or in Reynolds number. Reynolds numbers of all diaspores examined are well above the range in which Stokes' Law applies. I recommend that the use of formulae based on Stokes' Law be curtailed in studies of the relationship between plume loading and settling velocity. The results suggest that many seed characters may have evolved due to selection on dispersal ability. This is in spite of phyletic constraints on morphology reflected in the relative uniformity of Reynolds numbers within subfamilies.

Free-roaming cat populations have a high intrinsic growth rate, and euthanasia is estimated to be more effective at reducing cat populations than trap-neuter-return programs.

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