Conservation strategies have pros and cons, from the political to the economic to the classic biological. The goal of the body of work presented here seeks to explore an important potential downside of a popular conservation strategy, with the ultimate goal of improving that strategy not denouncing it. Conservation linkages, or corridors, have been a popular tool for multiple decades, and they are intended to enable native plant and animal movement in our increasingly fragmented world. For as long as they have been lauded, they have also been debated and one point of contention in that ongoing debate is whether or not linkages will connect up the species or processes we do not want moving across our landscape. My dissertation research used invasive plant species as its focal "unwanted" in conservation linkages. I outline the underpinnings of this work through a conceptual model that ties together the major ideas that feed into this concern over invasive plants in linkages, drawing from invasion, landscape, and conservation ecology (Chapter 1). I examined the concepts introduced in my conceptual model via observational data collection in a replicated model linkage system in hedgerows of Northern Central Valley, California (Chapter 2) and in large-scale conservation linkages of Southern California (Chapter 3). Those two field-based projects expand upon major themes raised by my conceptual model. Chapter 1 functions as an introduction and guidance source for researchers and managers who may be concerned about invasive plants in their conservation linkage. I developed a conceptual model that delineates eight ways in which invasive plants may interact with conservation linkages. Each interaction type within the model has three main components: linkage, matrix, and focal species. I discuss key aspects of these components, including a) differentiating among matrix types, b) understanding edge effects within the linkages, and c) incorporating relevant invasive species' ecology (primarily dispersal ecology). This model will enhance landscape-level knowledge of invasion ecology and aid land managers in identifying and prioritizing research and management decisions in their conservation linkages. Chapter 2 takes some of the major concepts of Chapter 1 off the paper and into the field. Using a hedgerow network in California's northern Central Valley as the model linkage system, this chapter focuses on how entire invasive plant communities are affected by various landscape-level factors and what contributes to spatially-explicit differences in invasive plant distribution within any given hedgerow. In 31 hedgerows, I collected spatially-explicit invasive plant distribution data as well as data for variables in seven explanatory variables groups: environmental, historical, landscape, management, spatial, structural, and biological. To analyze this data I used a combination of canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), variance partitioning, and non-parametric tests. I found that hedgerow edges were more invaded than interiors, in both species numbers (richness) and abundance (cover), and that difference was likely due to decreased light availability in hedgerow interiors, due to shading. Community-level patterns were strongly associated with environmental, historical, structural and/or landscape explanatory variables. The type of matrix was a key correlative factor and interacted with species dispersal mode. These results will serve as a guide for designing and managing hedgerows in ways that minimize invasion by certain groups of non-native plants based on characteristics of key landscape variables. Chapter 3 takes the concepts of Chapter 1 and the questions of Chapter 2 and applies them in a larger geographic region that contains real-world conservation linkages. This chapter delves more into the effect of differing matrix types and edge effects (i.e. effects of increasing distance away from a linkage edge into the linkage interior). I collected field data on a suite of focal invasive plants of concern to land managers in eight large-scale conservation linkages in southern California. Richness and cover data were collected along edges and up to 200m into the interior of linkages, supplemented with data from the middle-interior of linkages and the connected habitat patches. Explanatory variables were grouped into the same seven categories as those of Chapter 2: historical, structural, landscape, matrix, linkage, biological, and spatial. Using the same analysis methods as above supplemented with mixed-model analysis and classification and regression trees (CART), I found that linkage-related variables consistently explained larger proportions of the data variation than variables in the other six categories. Matrix land-use type again had an influence on invasive plant patterns, and the type of matrix influenced the magnitude of edge effects. Differing dispersal modes only interacted with invasive plant patterns along linkage edges. As in Chapter 2, I included specific management recommendations for how to research and manage invasive plants in conservation linkage systems with similar habitat or matrix types.