Workshop 2010, Perth, Scotland

The fifth MIREN annual meeting was held in Perth, Scotland on the 24th and 25th of September, 2010, prior to the Global Change and the World's Mountains conference. Thirteen people attended. Two researchers from Kashmir were unfortunately unable to obtain the required visas for travel to the meeting.

Christoph Kueffer began the meeting with a review of MIREN research and outreach over the five years of its existence, showing that the group has been very successful.

The main outcomes of the meeting were as follows:

The future structure and operation of MIREN

There was general agreement that MIREN should remain small and focus on non-native plant invasions in mountains. It was unanimously proposed that Kashmir and South Africa be invited to become new MIREN core regions.

The time is approaching for succession of MIREN chairs. Accordingly, it was agreed that Anibal Pauchard will replace Curt Daehler as MIREN chair in January 2011 and Lisa Rew will replace Keith McDougall in June 2011. Christoph Kueffer will remain coordinator of MIREN.

The next MIREN annual meeting is planned for 2012.

Future research projects

It was agreed that a priority in the near future is the re-measurement of plots sampled in 2006 / 07 to evaluate short-term population turnover and form part of a longitudinal study of invasion patterns. This is likely to be done in 2011/12.

Other projects discussed that have either commenced at a local level or are proposed for future multi-region co-operation included studies of the influence of herbivory, survey in new regions, demography / phenology studies, transplant experiments, the role of nutrient availability in facilitating invasions and GIS modeling.

MIREN outreach

The MIREN database of non-native plants in mountains is now available online (http://www.miren.ethz.ch/database/index.html).

There is interest in developing outreach material on the most problematic mountain invaders for publication on the MIREN web page. Links to existing information on these invaders will also be provided.

The Global Change and the World's Mountains conference

MIRENers presented ten presentations and one poster at the Global Change and the World's Mountains conference, where MIREN hosted two sessions. Videos of all presentations will shortly be available at http://mri.scnatweb.ch/events/mri-events/global-change-and-the-world-s-mountains-perth-uk.html