Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) invasive plant species data from the eastern United States, intersected with wildland-urban interface (WUI) status and land cover context

Non-native invasive plants are a persistent and growing threat to U.S. forests. Meanwhile, the amount of forest within the wildland-urban interface (WUI) is increasing, with the expectation that the disturbance caused by housing and the establishment of landscaping plants may enable the spread of non-native plants. This data publication contains combined invasive plant information from approximately 45,000 forest inventory plots (collected between 2010 and 2018); WUI spatial data from 1990, 2000, and 2010; and national land cover data from 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 to test four hypotheses: (1) WUI forests are more invaded than non-WUI forests; (2) WUI intermix forests (where houses mingle with forest) are more invaded than interface forests (where housing abuts forest); (3) WUI forests experience a delay in invasion (i.e., invasion debt) following housing development; and (4) the invasion of WUI forests is associated with disturbance and propagule pressure (based on land cover context). The resulting tabular data include: standard plot information such as location, elevation, aspect, slope, etc.; binary flags denoting if the plot was WUI, housing mingled with forest (intermix), housing that abuts forest (interface), etc. in 1990, 2000, and 2010; information regarding the number of tree species and number of invasive species on the plot; and the percent of agricultural, developed, and forest landcover within 81 hectare window around the specified FIA plot in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016.<br>These data were developed to assess the degree to which eastern U.S. forests in the wildland-urban interface are invaded by non-native plants, and whether the invasion of WUI forests is associated with land cover context (forested, developed, and agricultural).<br>For more information, please see Potter et al. (2024). These data were published on 10/07/2024. Minor metadata updates were made on 11/22/2024.