The Patrick Center for Environmental Research of The Academy of Natural Sciences is embarking on a major new project to solve pressing problems facing natural lands of the Fairmount Park system, caused by invasive plant species. The study is one of the latest attempts to control the undesirable effects of aggressive non-native species on the environment. The Patrick Center will conduct the four-year project to help managers learn how best to restore and maintain a healthy community of native plants in the Fairmount Park system. Efforts to identify the best ways to manage natural lands in the nations' parks have traditionally been somewhat informal, relying more on professional judgement than scientific assessment of alternatives. With this new grant, a team of scientists headed by Dr. James McNair, Senior Scientist at the Academy's Patrick Center, will assist Fairmount Park system managers by using the technique of adaptive management to improve their ability to develop and maintain healthy plant communities.
Adaptive management is a way of assessing methods for managing natural resources, such as woodlands.
Using carefully designed field experiments, outcomes of alternative methods are compared in a systematic way so that the most effective ones can be identified. The project will focus on Japanese knotweed and Norway maple. These species need to be controlled so that a greater diversity of plants can flourish, especially plants that historically have grown in our area. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia is located at 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, on Logan Circle.