USDA Cooperative Forum on Invasive Species
Lowland conifer forest and bog.
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Location: Graduate Annapolis Hotel, Annapolis, Maryland
Meeting Registration
The registration fee for the 2026 Research Forum is $399 for full registration, $200 for a one-day registration (Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday).
Presentation Guides
Oral presentations are 20 minutes long, including time for questions. You will be contacted if your oral presentation is accepted for the program. The deadline to propose a talk is January 9, 2026.
Posters should fit within a 45″ x 45″ (115 cm x 115 cm) board. The deadline to propose a poster application is February 1, 2026.
Lodging
Use this link for hotel reservations at the Graduate Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland. Reservations will be accepted through the group cutoff date of Friday, January 23, 2026.
Background Information
The USDA Forum on Invasive Species is an annual meeting that began in 1990. The original purpose was to coordinate research on the European spongy moth, Lymantria dispar, among USDA agency scientists and their university cooperators by facilitating the exchange of information and data and encouraging their collaboration. This assured a degree of accountability and minimized the duplication of effort among the many scientists who conduct research on this serious forest pest. The Forum gained added stature when scientists from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere in North America learned of this meeting and began to attend and participate. The involvement of foreign scientists from countries where spongy moth and other invasive species have been native pests for centuries has added a different perspective to the meeting and has enhanced international cooperation, particularly in the use of biologically based technologies.
Beginning with the 1996 meeting, the scope of the Interagency Research Forum was broadened, and the Program Committee has devoted a significant portion of the agenda to discuss additional non-native invasive insects, diseases, and weeds that affect forest and urban trees, including, but not limited to the Asian Longhorned beetle, large-pine shoot moth, hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, Asian spongy moth, spotted lanternfly, beech bark disease, sudden oak death, butternut canker, mile-a-minute weed, and kudzu.
Beginning in 2025, the National Invasive Species Management Association (NAISMA) took over the logistics of hosting the Forum. To reflect this shift, the name changed from the "USDA Interagency Forum on Invasive Species" to the "USDA Cooperative Forum on Invasive Species".
General topics related to these pests include detection, measuring impacts, basic biology and genetics, risk assessment, preventing introductions, biological control, resistance breeding, and international forest insect and disease reports.
Each year, after the meeting, a proceedings is published that can include extended length abstracts from participants. These proceedings, with links below, have been a valuable source of information for scientist and managers that focus on invasive forest pests.