The theoretical basis of my research project is mostly about human impact in high-use areas of protected areas, like park roads. Basically, my hypothesis is that the closer to the park road, the more non-native plants there will be, and further away from the park road, native plants will increase as the dominant cover species. So, not only am I looking at non-native plants out competing native plants in disturbed areas, but I’m also considering why the non-native plants are there in the first place. I recently moved to the interior from the coast, where I’m used to horrific invasions of Himalayan blackberry, Japanese knotweed, Scotch broom, etc., that literally hurt my soul (dramatic much???). Coming to Kamloops has been eye-opening as I’ve had to re-learn all the invaders. This project is helping me with this. The three keywords I would choose for my project are: grasslands, native plants, invasive plants, human disturbance.
ha not so dramatic. There are different challenges here for sure. If the non-natives are controlled at the roadside, they don’t move into the grasslands. We recently found a new invasive along the road further up so yes they are brought in by vehicles etc
Kamloops has lots of documentation on Invasives and some interesting ways of dealing with them!