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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.'"
Then, we get snakes to eat the bugs, then gorillas to kill the snakes. When winter comes, the gorillas will just die off. It's perfect.
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When I first saw the title, I figured this was a hippy-related article. :)
Woodstock announcer: "Don't eat the brown acid-- Oh and for God's sake, stay away from the purple weed!"
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
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.
Skinner:
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa:
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner:
No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa:
But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner:
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa:
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner:
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
From what we know, there's no downside.
Do you hear that? It is all of Australia laughing.
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/
Introducing a non-native anything to an environment will eventually affect the environment. Look at N. America and the White Man.
Unfortunatly we are also home to some invasive alien species that threaten to kill and choke our natural life. One excellant example is the recent appearance of Coqui Frogs (read more) which came in on plants being imported for sales (go figure).
These little frogs (about the size of a nickel) are the loudest thing you have ever heard. At over 110 decibles per chirp there are no predators in Hawai'i for this creature and communities can grow as high as 20,000 to 40,000 per acre. You can imagine the din.
Furthermore, the coqui are eating insects that are normally eaten by our native creatures - which can upset the balance.
Hence my neighbor... coqui are moving into our neighborhood and the neighborhood association asked $44 from each person from which they would hire specialists to come and destroy the coqui (there are two effective methods, one a caffeine spray and the other a citric acid sollution spray - we have used the citric acid spray with great success).
My neighbor, a devout vegean is steadfast against it. Will not treat her coqui... "they have a right to live". Whereas, my response is... hey, man brought them in, man can bring them back out - to which she is very upset. (in the same token, she won't treat for termites, cockroaches, or rats either). Completely misses the point, as far as I can tell, that they are damaging OTHER species - nopers, THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE.
Ah well... I always maintained that eating vegetables was worse because they can't run and hide - and killing an entire field is akin to localized genocide.
Aloha nui loa
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 }-
What I don't get is, we have tons of purple loosestrife and tons of bored teenagers with no job; these are the idealistic little twerps that want to save the planet. Is it just my imagination or could all bored teenagers make a serious dent in the loosestrife crop. What do we have to do, tell them they can get high off it? Cross it with Cannabis indica? Saaaaay.... now there's an idea.
I remove all the loosestrife from my little 2 acre strip of the river here each year. It's a tough plant to dig out.
There are places near here where you can see acres of this purple crap. Sure it's kinda cute but it does kill everything else that was growing there before and of course all the things that relied on what grew there before go somewhere else and the whole ecosystem is buggered up. You see more of it each year.
Need Mercedes parts ?
i thought there was also some deal where the size of their red stripe (or black stripe?) dictates how shitty the winter is going to be (i live in Minnesota) the following year, although i am unsure if this claim is scientifically rigorous, or just a rumour.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan