Forida's Brazilian Peppertree Management Plan

Brazilian peppertree, Schinus terebinthifolius Raddi (Anacardiaceae), is an aggressive, rapidly colonizing weed of disturbed habitats, natural communities and conservation areas in southern California, Hawaii, Texas, and peninsular Florida. In 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified Brazilian peppertree as one of the most significant non-indigenous threats to federal listed endangered and threatened native plants throughout the Hawaiian Islands. This invasive shrub grows rapidly, tolerates a wide range of environmental conditions, and is a prolific seed producer. In Florida, Brazilian peppertree is a pioneer species of disturbed sites such as highways, canals, power line rights-of-way, fallow fields, and drained wetlands. Once established, it quickly displaces the native vegetation adjacent to the disturbance, often forming dense monocultures that reduce the biological diversity of plants and animals in the invaded area Nearly 280,000 ha of all terrestrial ecosystems in central and south Florida are currently infested with Brazilian peppertree. As early as 1969, it was recognized as an important invader of the Everglades National Park. Today, vast monospecific stands of Brazilian peppertree pose a significant threat to restoration efforts in the Florida Everglades. In the 1990s, the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council's Brazilian Peppertree Task Force (BPTF), an interagency working committee of knowledgeable professionals, recognized that Brazilian peppertree represented one of the most serious threats to the ecology of Florida's natural areas, and was a high priority target for the development and implementation of a coordinated management plan. Although a broad array of control methods was available to manage existing stands of Brazilian peppertree, there was general agreement among public and private land managers that an ecologically-based integrated management plan was needed to provide an environmentally acceptable, cost effective, and permanent solution to this problem. This attitude was reflected in the first edition of the Brazilian Pepper Management Plan for Florida produced by the BPTF (Ferriter 1997). The initial Plan provided an overview of the problem and established criteria for making recommendations for a statewide management plan based on the best available knowledge. This document is the first revision of the 1997 Brazilian Pepper Management Plan for Florida. It not only reviews the current literature on Brazilian peppertree but also incorporates recent advances in management philosophies and control methods as recommended in the original Plan. More importantly, this document describes for the first time site-specific integrated management strategies for Brazilian peppertree, and identifies the natural processes and mechanisms that can change the dynamics of plant communities in Florida currently dominated by this invasive weed. It also explains how ecological processes that are capable of having a selective and predictable population level impact on Brazilian peppertree can be manipulated using appropriate control technologies to permanently alter the plant's invasive characteristics.