| Importance
Invasive/exotic plants are one of the most serious threats to maintaining ecosystem integrity in the South Florida and Caribbean parks. Once established, invasive exotic plant species can affect park natural resources and visitor satisfaction by altering the natural landscape, reducing habitat for native plants and animals, and increasing demand on park resources for trail maintenance and exotic plant eradication efforts. Therefore, detecting new species with the potential to become invasive, while they are still in small controllable populations, is important to the cost-effective management of this problem. |
