Problems and countermeasures of exotic invasive plants in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

With the development of global economic integration, invasive plant species have posed serious threats to native ecosystems, public health, and regional economies. In the present paper, the exotic invasive plants were summarized and analyzed based on many years of practice and collected literatures, and the current status, occurrence characteristics, damages and trends of the invasive alien plants were clarified in Inner Mongolia. The results showed that there were total 45 invasive plant species in Inner Mongolia, which belong to 16 families and 36 genera. Among these 45 invasive plant species, 43(79.5%) species belonged to annual or biennial herb; 19 (42.2%) and 18 (40%) species originated from America and Europe, respectively. Although the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has achieved some success in the prevention and control of invasive alien plants, there were still many problems including lack of attention, imperfect related laws and regulations, insufficient supervision and investment, imperfect assessment and early warning mechanism. Therefore, the following measures were proposed which included increasing capital investment, raising awareness of prevention, making risk assessment of invasive plants, early warning monitoring system, improving the level of scientific research and testing technology, construction information platform and strengthen foreign exchange to ensure the ecological security of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the safety of people's lives and property, maintain social harmony and stability.