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Purple Weed vs. Beetle
hondo77 writes "How do you deal with an invasive, non-native plant? With a non-native beetle. This AP article talks about the non-native purple loosestrife weed, which arrived in North America in the late 1800s, and how it has been choking out indigenous native plans. After a study at Cornell, the Galerucella beetle was introduced in 2000 as part of a pilot program in Massachusetts to keep the weed under control. 'From what we know, there's no downside.'"
This was done back in the 1970s in the Pacific Northwest with Tansy Ragweed. Don't remember the moth specifically- but boy did we have a lot of those cute little yellow and black furry catepillars around when I was a kid.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Australia itself is an ecological disaster. It's the perfect case to study for any type of animal introduction into foreign soil.
you can check out,for instance story about:
Rabits in Australia
Mices in Australia
And a not-so-bad story about
Camels in Australia
Of course, i'm no Aussie, i'm just a Canuck... i'm sure the locals can provide a lot more exemples
I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
The Parthenium weed (Parthenium hysterophorus) came to India along with PL480 grain from the US in the mid 60s and created quite a mess. It was brought under control, somewhat, using an "imported" beetle, Zygogramma bicolorata. . That was not without its scare though. The momentum didn't sustain though and parthenium is making a slow comeback.
The Cane Toad in Australia, and the Mongoose in Hawaii are both examples of massive ecological disasters. But there have been cases of successful non-native species to manage pests. The Asian Glass Carp has been used to manage Hydrilla infestations, they use sterile Carp, and their use has been successful, and there are other success stories out there. Now that we know about the seriousness of mistakes, there is a lot more careful testing before introducing non-native species to control problem invasive species.
Fighting the plant back is probably a good idea since it is a severe problem species. But this approach, while it might help for a while, would need a lot of maintenance unless the beetles hung around after they killed their host (in which case there are other problems). Each Purple Loostrife produces thousands of tiny seeds every year. These seeds lie dormant when buried in mud, and can survive buried for centuries, only to spring to life once the earth they were buried in is disturbed. Even if we got rid of every living plant in North America we would stil have centuries of fighting it to make it really go away.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
Growing up in Georiga, all I have to say is Kudzu.
http://www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu/
http://www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/
Some time ago is right, it was in the early 1930's.
I'd say that biologists have improved their environmental impact studies a fair bit since then.
It's interesting to note that common crows in australia have learned to flip the toad onto its back before eating from the underside, to avoid the poisonous sacs on its back.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I currently work for Ducks Unlimited and pick purple loosestrife nearly 3 times a week. The stuff is horrible. If there are roots left it'll grow back and the flowers make a million seeds, ugh! I can say that purple loosestrife has ruined some of BC's (i'm in Vancouver) finest parks, and I have seen these beetles in action, they work to keep it in check, but they are no final solution..
Mike Jones-{ Genetic Engineer, in Training }-