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Synthetic herbicides have been used globally to control weeds in major field crops. This has imposed a strong selection for any trait that enables plant populations to survive and reproduce in the presence of the herbicide. Herbicide resistance in weeds must be minimized because it is a major limiting factor to food security in global agriculture. This represents a huge challenge that will require great research efforts to develop control strategies as alternatives to the dominant and almost exclusive practice of weed control by herbicides. Weed scientists, plant ecologists and evolutionary biologists should join forces and work towards an improved and more integrated understanding of resistance across all scales. This approach will likely facilitate the design of innovative solutions to the global herbicide resistance challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors discuss the workshop on weed science and invasion ecology that was held at the B-Bar Ranch in Emigrant, Montana in June 2012. The authors state that the discussion on the impact of invasive species focuses on the need for reduced diversity, however, impact assessment was made difficult by the roles of the species in response to the changes in the ecosystem. Moreover, addressing the knowledge gaps and challenges in the said workshop will improve the research in evolution and ecology.

In weed science and management, models are important and can be used to better understand what has occurred in management scenarios, to predict what will happen and to evaluate the outcomes of control methods. To-date, perspectives on and the understanding of weed models have been disjointed, especially in terms of how they have been applied to advance weed science and management. This paper presents a general overview of the nature and application of a full range of simulation models on the ecology, biology, and management of arable weeds, and how they have been used to provide insights and directions for decision making when long-term weed population trajectories are impractical to be determined using field experimentation. While research on weed biology and ecology has gained momentum over the past four decades, especially for species with high risk for herbicide resistance evolution, knowledge gaps still exist for several life cycle parameters for many agriculturally important weed species. More research efforts should be invested in filling these knowledge gaps, which will lead to better models and ultimately better inform weed management decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]