6.3 Transition Stages

It is interesting to see where US weed plants originally came from.

• 39% are native to North America
• 3% are native to South and Central America
• 35% are native to Europe
• 33% are native to Africa, Asia, and Australia

Of all the weed species introduced to the US, only about 10% of them become invasive.

In the following video clip, Dr. Steve Young at the Utah State University Ecology Center, Invasive Plant Science Lab walks through each of the steps required for a plant population to become truly invasive.  Fortunately for us, 90% of all potentially invasive weeds never complete all of these steps to actually become invasive.