Monitoring Invasive Exotic Vines in Battle Park (2013)

Undergraduate: Heather Sims

Faculty Advisor: Peter White
Department: Biology

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Battle Park is a 93 acre forest located in Chapel Hill, NC. Adjacent to UNC campus, Battle Park is run by the North Carolina Botanical Garden with the goals of protecting the forest habitat for native plant and animal species and providing the Chapel Hill community with a recreational area. The park is threatened by invasive exotic plant species that change the forest¿s structure and make it unsuitable for native plant species. My research focuses on the two most prominent invasive species, Asian wisteria (Wisteria japonica) and English ivy (Hedera helix). I have created a monitoring system using GPS technology and surveys. The primary product of this system is a map that shows the locations of English ivy and Asian wisteria and the density of the species patch. With repeated sampling, this map will show changes in the presence of these species in the park, enabling park management to gauge how effective removal attempts are and where and at what rate these species are spreading within the park.