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Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?

Predicting which plant taxa are more likely to become weeds in a region presents significant challenges to both researchers and government agencies. Often it is done in a qualitative or semi-quantitative way. In this study, we explored the potential of using the quantitative self-organising map (SOM...

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Autores principales: Morin, Louise, Paini, Dean R., Randall, Roderick P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23393591
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055547
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author Morin, Louise
Paini, Dean R.
Randall, Roderick P.
author_facet Morin, Louise
Paini, Dean R.
Randall, Roderick P.
author_sort Morin, Louise
collection PubMed
description Predicting which plant taxa are more likely to become weeds in a region presents significant challenges to both researchers and government agencies. Often it is done in a qualitative or semi-quantitative way. In this study, we explored the potential of using the quantitative self-organising map (SOM) approach to analyse global weed assemblages and estimate likelihoods of plant taxa becoming weeds before and after they have been moved to a new region. The SOM approach examines plant taxa associations by analysing where a taxon is recorded as a weed and what other taxa are recorded as weeds in those regions. The dataset analysed was extracted from a pre-existing, extensive worldwide database of plant taxa recorded as weeds or other related status and, following reformatting, included 187 regions and 6690 plant taxa. To assess the value of the SOM approach we selected Australia as a case study. We found that the key and most important limitation in using such analytical approach lies with the dataset used. The classification of a taxon as a weed in the literature is not often based on actual data that document the economic, environmental and/or social impact of the taxon, but mostly based on human perceptions that the taxon is troublesome or simply not wanted in a particular situation. The adoption of consistent and objective criteria that incorporate a standardized approach for impact assessment of plant taxa will be necessary to develop a new global database suitable to make predictions regarding weediness using methods like SOM. It may however, be more realistic to opt for a classification system that focuses on the invasive characteristics of plant taxa without any inference to impacts, which to be defined would require some level of research to avoid bias from human perceptions and value systems.
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spelling pubmed-35647982013-02-07 Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds? Morin, Louise Paini, Dean R. Randall, Roderick P. PLoS One Research Article Predicting which plant taxa are more likely to become weeds in a region presents significant challenges to both researchers and government agencies. Often it is done in a qualitative or semi-quantitative way. In this study, we explored the potential of using the quantitative self-organising map (SOM) approach to analyse global weed assemblages and estimate likelihoods of plant taxa becoming weeds before and after they have been moved to a new region. The SOM approach examines plant taxa associations by analysing where a taxon is recorded as a weed and what other taxa are recorded as weeds in those regions. The dataset analysed was extracted from a pre-existing, extensive worldwide database of plant taxa recorded as weeds or other related status and, following reformatting, included 187 regions and 6690 plant taxa. To assess the value of the SOM approach we selected Australia as a case study. We found that the key and most important limitation in using such analytical approach lies with the dataset used. The classification of a taxon as a weed in the literature is not often based on actual data that document the economic, environmental and/or social impact of the taxon, but mostly based on human perceptions that the taxon is troublesome or simply not wanted in a particular situation. The adoption of consistent and objective criteria that incorporate a standardized approach for impact assessment of plant taxa will be necessary to develop a new global database suitable to make predictions regarding weediness using methods like SOM. It may however, be more realistic to opt for a classification system that focuses on the invasive characteristics of plant taxa without any inference to impacts, which to be defined would require some level of research to avoid bias from human perceptions and value systems. Public Library of Science 2013-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC3564798/ /pubmed/23393591 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055547 Text en © 2013 Morin et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Morin, Louise
Paini, Dean R.
Randall, Roderick P.
Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?
title Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?
title_full Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?
title_fullStr Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?
title_full_unstemmed Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?
title_short Can Global Weed Assemblages Be Used to Predict Future Weeds?
title_sort can global weed assemblages be used to predict future weeds?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23393591
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055547
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