What’s a Weed? Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour of Park Visitors about Weeds

Abstract

Weeds are a major threat to biodiversity globally degrading natural areas of high conservation value. But what are our attitudes about weeds and their management including weeds in national parks? Do we know what a weed is? Do we consider weeds a problem? Do we support their management? Are we unintentionally spreading weeds in parks? To answer these questions, we surveyed visitors entering a large popular national park near the city of Brisbane, Australia. Park visitors were knowledgeable about weeds; with >75% correctly defining weeds as ‘plants that grow where they are not wanted’. About 10% of the visitors, however, provided their own sophisticated definitions. This capacity to define weeds did not vary with people’s age, sex or level of education. We constructed a scale measuring visitors’ overall concern about weeds in parks using the responses to ten Likert scale statements. Over 85% of visitors were concerned about weeds with older visitors, hikers, and those who could correctly define weeds more concerned than their counterparts. The majority think visitors unintentionally introduce seeds into parks, with many (63%) having found seeds on their own clothing. However, over a third disposed of these seeds in ways that could facilitate weed spread. Therefore, although most visitors were knowledgeable and concerned about weeds, and support their control, there is a clear need for more effective communication regarding the risk of visitors unintentionally dispersing weed seeds in parks.

Public preferences for the management of different invasive alien forest taxa

“…An EWRR relies heavily on people's knowledge about IAS, which, according to several studies (Ansong and Pickering 2015;Carlson and Vondracek 2014;Ford-Thompson et al 2015;Nanayakkara et al 2018;Sharp et al 2011), can affect their capacity to participate in managing IAS and therefore successfully implement the system. In our research, the media obviously plays a key role in informing the public about IAS and, as confirmed by Marzano et al (2015), significantly contributes to the public's understanding of IAS related issues.…”

“…Several studies have been published on the attitudes of the public towards alien species and possible management measures (Ansong and Pickering 2015;Fischer and Charnley 2012;Ford-Thompson et al 2015;Lindemann-Matthies 2016;Nanayakkara et al 2018;Porth et al 2015;Rolfe and Windle 2014;Subroy et al 2018;Verbrugge et al 2013). However, most of these studies focused on only one taxonomic group-similar to the findings of Courchamp et al (2017)-from which the invasive plant species were best studied.…”

Climatic niche divergence and habitat suitability of eight alien invasive weeds in China under climate change

“…Hence, the AIWs may be closer to equilibrium in the invasive range than in the native range (Callen & Miller, ; Early & Sax, ; Strubbe, Broennimann, Chiron, & Matthysen, ). Niche divergence is strongly related to rapid evolution in the invasive range, disequilibrium in the native range caused by biotic interactions, dispersal barriers, and human activities (Ansong & Pickering, ; Dellinger et al., ; Guo, Lambertini, Li, Meyerson, & Brix, ; Lötter & Maitre, ; Marini et al., ; Martínez‐Cabrera, Schlichting, Silander, & Jones, ; Schmidt & Drake, ). Previous studies have shown that plant species for which dispersal ability is limited in native ranges could occupy wide climatic niche spaces enabled by genetic evolution and human activities (Donoghue & Edwards, ; Dellinger et al., ).…”

“…Alien invasive weeds (AIWs) have a high potential to threaten plant diversity (Ansong & Pickering, ; Beaumont, Gallagher, Leishman, Hughes, & Downey, ; van Kleunen et al., ; Parker, ; Stratonovitch, Storkey, & Semenov, ). By altering ecosystem functioning, the uncontrolled expansion of AIWs may also cause severe crop yield losses (Chauhan, Singh, Kumar, & Johnson, ; Fahad et al., ; Parker, ).…”

In lakes but not in minds: stakeholder knowledge of invasive species in prairie lakes

“…Support for management efforts can markedly increase when focus group discussions with stakeholders relay the rationale and methodology of invasive species eradication (Bremner and Park 2007). Findings suggest that stakeholders' knowledge about invasive species can influence their prevention, spread, and control, both through direct public action and support for management strategies (Ansong and Pickering 2015;Carlson and Vondracek 2014;Ford-Thompson et al 2015;Sharp et al 2011).…”