Funny acronyms BIRDIE and CWAC 🦆🐦‍⬛🐦 Great start of last day at National symposium on biol invasions with @vernonvisser Keynote sharing projects where cool statistical tools can help deal with the enormous current load of data @InvasionScience @SANBI_ZA @StellenboschUni

Kim Canavan showing surprising results of invasive plants on South African mountain ranges, with most species coming from 🇲🇽 and 🇨🇳 @KimCanavan3

“Keep the fire burning” 🔥 the use of stack burning for control of invasive plant species and the dissipating negative effect on native species with time (1-3 years) @mlungele @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni @SANBI_ZA

And it’s a wrap! What an amazing atmosphere we had this year at the Nat Symp of biological invasions in 🇿🇦 great networking and much fun was had @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni @SANBI_ZA

The importance of botanical gardens as sentinel sites to detect pests earlier 🌳🪲‘Plant health research on BG in 🇿🇦 and where we stand’, by postdoc @f_balocchi at Nat Symp on biological invasions @InvasionScience @SANBI_ZA – at Grabouw, South Africa

A roadmap to think about criteria for safe lists (=positive lists) for different taxa and industries (horticulture, pet trade), great talk by Dr Sabrina Kumschick at the Nat Symp for biological invasions 🌸🌼🦜🦎@SKumschick @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni @SANBI_ZA – at Grabouw, South Africa

Anne Pringle giving an amazing Keynote on why invasion ecology focuses on plants & animals and ignores fungi? Mind blowing talk: co-invaders (pines & mycorrhiza), golden oyster mushrooms, death caps and more! 🍄 @UWBotany @SANBI_ZA @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni

David Richardson introducing the ‘Economics & Invasions’ session with a great summary of research done to date on this topic @DaveRichSBosch @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni @SANBI_ZA

Super excited that The National Symposium on Biological Invasions is about to start!! 🤩🦆🐞🐛🐸🌲🌾 at Houw Hoek, Western Cape 🇿🇦 🌍 @InvasionScience @SANBI_ZA @StellenboschUni

What are the impacts of biological invasions? Master and PhD students from the @InvasionScience share their results from a range of different biomes and taxa @StellenboschUni (It was my first time chairing a session ☺️)

Dr @LukeJPotgieter chaired a great Invasion ecology and dynamics pod to kick off the students’ presentations at the @InvasionScience Annual research meeting ✨🌍 @StellenboschUni

It was great to have Prof Steven Chown from @MonashUni giving a summary of how the CIB started and the struggles of obtaining funding, and most importantly that passionate people are the key to a successful excellence centre @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni

Mind blowing talk by Camille Parmesan on impacts of climate change on species & conservation. We don’t try to conserve species anymore but genetic diversity. Should we allow assisted colonisation and hybridisation of otherwise doomed species? 🤯 @InvasionScience @IPCC_CH

Kicking off the CIB Annual Research Meeting with Prof Guy Midgley, VC Prof Sibusiso Muyo and Prof Steven Chown (founding Director of the CIB) @InvasionScience @StellenboschUni @MonashUni