What are the causes and levels of the problems at NRS reserves?
Non-native genotypes have been and are being introduced for a variety of reasons, many of them laudable, but not all of them well thought out. There are at least six classes of introductions: 1. Mitigation by a company that uses or has used the reserve (e.g. McLaughlin), erosion control, cleanup of contaminated soil or other soil remediation, and roadside landscaping. The company contracts a landscaper or other contractor with no real biological knowledge. Many acres may be planted with entirely inappropriate plants (species and genotypes). Similar events have occurred with animals. 2. Restoration to improve the Reserve’s ecological state; removal of exotics and reintroduction of native species, or reintroduction of extirpated genes or genotypes. The scale may be sufficiently large that commercial sources are used and the companies usually do not reveal where the stock was originally collected, and/or how many generations, the stocks were kept since original collection, or what populat
