Honeysuckle is killing forests and ivy is helping, especially in the northeast/midwest. Kill all that shit, help stop it from spreading. And try to volunteer for local groups that are clearing invasive species. It’s pretty amazing seeing a forest before and after invasive species have been removed.
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In the Southwestern US tamarisk trees are a huge problem, they spread really fast along rivers and streams and their leaves have a lot of salt in them and shed constantly so they choke out native plant species. When I was a kid I used to play in the river a lot and I can remember tamarisk trees were the only thing that grew there, any other type of tree or plant was pretty much nonexistent. Luckily though there is a species of beetle that feeds on tamarisk and nothing else, they were brought in a few years ago to control the tamarisk population and they seem to be helping a ton. They cleared out all the dead tamarisk trees and now the riverbanks are filled with cottonwoods, willows, and reeds, it’s really nice to see.
I was on a biology field study trip once and my professor turned to us while we were heading down a trail in a national park and said “Okay so this is technically illegal, but we’re going to go over there and rip up a bunch of plants because they’re invasive species”. Cool dude, he was also warning about the insect die off like 10 years before it happened.
Some profs are uber cool. Others are reactionary dickheads. Glad your prof was the former.
Environmental biology professors are almost always cool. They’re always weird and interesting.
He also once had a student go ahead and plant a tootsie roll molded to look like scat on a rock so that we could come upon it and watch him take a bite to “determine what kind of animal it was from”.
Gotta love the dedication to the bit.
Rosa Multiflora was spawned by the devil. Take a fucking chainsaw to it and it still comes back for a couple of years.
If an invasive species is clearing forests then let it run its natural course. Humanity is the virus. :fedposting:
Restoration ecologist here: ask away.
Can I kill Japanese knotweed by becoming its first predator in the Americas or do you have to light it on fire and salt the earth to get rid of it?
Is the Anglosphere making real progress with this stuff? My gut tells me it’s being left to languish like every other public effort
When I see China doing shit like trying to push back deserts it just makes me think we could’ve wiped out most invasive species ages ago if we actually tried.
I would guess on a small scale, we’re making progress. It’s much easier to manage on a small scale or if there is no exotic seed bank. For example, I’ve seen former agricultural fields look great 3 years after restoration.
There just isn’t a unified response to it. There are so many different entities that own and manage land it, you get different results.
I wish I knew about control of invasives in other countries and how serious they’re taking it.
Is there much point in doing this on an individual scale?
Probably not, but if you’re body feels like it’s on fire because you see them popping up just do it.
There are probably plenty of volunteer programs through parks or NGOs wherever you live which is the most effective thing you can do.
I have a big ass juniper tree out back that has honeysuckle growing all through it. No idea how to get it out.
Lets see… we’ve got the invasive asian honeysuckle, tree of heaven and beef heart plant.
The honeysuckle is actively detrimental.
The beef heart plant is weird, it grows kinda slow and takes over shaded fields when we have a drought year but when there’s rain the local flora seems to be able to compete with it. Has helped keep the dirt in place during drought years.
The tree of heaven that we’ve found around here are fast growing tree that spreads through seed and through a parent’s root system. Shit’s crazy. Smells like peanut oil when you cut them down.
This is one of those things that seems like an unwinnable battle under present conditions. We’d need massive campaigns to survey for thes plants and then kill only them. I’ve only seen efforts be successful when confined to one mountain.
This seems like a project for a socialist state. A centrally-planned effort targeted at da youths to eliminate a plant species from a continent.
The good news is that controlled fires are very effective. Native plants are used to fires, fires are natural. Fire will burn away invasive plants.
Sadly it’s hard to do controlled fires when everything is so dry all the time.
there’s a special kind of irony in seeing a bunch of invasive humans complain about invasive plants
but yea honeysuckle is pretty bad
