Conservation Committee

The Conservation Committee of ONPS has initiated a Citizen Scientists program to help inventory selected invasive plants. The first goal will be to determine what counties the worst of the invasive plants and those on the watch list are located now. The watch list contains several species that from their abundance and where they are currently known to be has earned them a lower ranking but their known behavior otherwise suggest they may be spreading fast. This inventory could prove they should be on our worst list.
 
ONPS members should be one of the best candidate pools for this project. Many are very knowledgeable and often in the field, just the qualities needed for the project. However, anyone with these qualities would be welcomed.
 
Chadwick Cox is heading up the recruitment for Citizen Scientists. He has created a guide to help identify the invasive plants that will be inventoried in meeting this first goal. The guide is available here in a pdf format. The guide also explains what information is needed. An additional help will be the collection of specimens since the distribution is vouchered, that is, for each county to be listed as containing the species, there needs to be a specimen from that county that is in a herbarium. When the Citizen Scientist locates a species in a new county, OkIPC can collect a specimen but it would be a big help if the Citizen Scientist actually collected the specimen. The guide provides information on how that would be done.
 
If you are interested in helping with this project, notify Chadwick at chadwick.cox@att.net or 405-329-8860.