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For several years work has been ongoing to compile information to facilitate the identification of non-native plants that (potentially) pose a threat to the biodiversity of the ecozone comprising Northern Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and North-Western France. Such identification information may also be used for species that are regulated by other countries and are likely to be present as contaminants in commercial exports originating from the Netherlands. This information system comprises a set of interactive image-driven identification keys for invasive plants at various growth stages for use in a range of different situations: seed contaminants in bird feed, weeds in bonsai plants, seedling identification, identification keys of invasive terrestrial plants and invasive aquatic plants. The advantage of image-driven identification keys using a multiple entry system lies in limiting misunderstandings in terminology and failure in identification, in the absence of certain characters, as is sometimes the case in dichotomous keys. The interactive keys are linked to the species information in the Q-bank database, including datasheets, worldwide distribution maps, specimen level information, barcodes of selected species, etc. This information is now available at http://www.q-bank.eu/Plants/ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological invasions are regarded as threats to global biodiversity. Among invasive aliens, a number of plant species belonging to the genera Myriophyllum, Ludwigia and Cabomba, and to the Hydrocharitaceae family pose a particular ecological threat to water bodies. Therefore, one would try to prevent them from entering a country. However, many related species are commercially traded, and distinguishing invasive from non-invasive species based on morphology alone is often difficult for plants in a vegetative stage. In this regard, DNA barcoding could become a good alternative. In this study, 242 samples belonging to 26 species from 10 genera of aquatic plants were assessed using the chloroplast loci trn H- psb A, mat K and rbc L. Despite testing a large number of primer sets and several PCR protocols, the mat K locus could not be amplified or sequenced reliably and therefore was left out of the analysis. Using the other two loci, eight invasive species could be distinguished from their respective related species, a ninth one failed to produce sequences of sufficient quality. Based on the criteria of universal application, high sequence divergence and level of species discrimination, the trn H-psb A noncoding spacer was the best performing barcode in the aquatic plant species studied. Thus, DNA barcoding may be helpful with enforcing a ban on trade of such invasive species, such as is already in place in the Netherlands. This will become even more so once DNA barcoding would be turned into machinery routinely operable by a nonspecialist in botany and molecular genetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floating pennywort ( Hydrocotyle ranunculoides L.f.), a member of the plant family Araliaceae originating from North America, is an example of an invasive aquatic species posing serious problems to the management of waterways outside of its original distribution area in Australia and Western Europe. As a consequence, its import was banned in the Netherlands. It can be difficult to distinguish H. ranunculoides from other species of the genus on a morphological basis. In this regard, DNA barcoding may become a good alternative once this could be performed on a routine basis. In this study, we show that it is possible to distinguish H. ranunculoides from a series of closely related congeners by using a single plastid DNA sequence, trnH-psbA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]