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.'"

Comments

Simpson's reference

[Libertarian_Geek]

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.

Cane Toad...

[advocate_one]

They did this same thing some time ago in Australia and it was a disaster...

"The South American cane toad, Bufo marinus, was introduced to Australia as a biological control for the cane beetle, which destroys millions of dollars sugar cane each year. This was an environmental disaster. First, the toad never developed a taste for cane beetles, but instead slaked its prodigious appetite with all manner of endemic fauna. Second, the toad has two poison sacs behind its head, and its toxins are not restricted solely to these glands, making it poisonous fare for Australian wildlife during every stage of its lifecycle."

Use of non-native species isn't always a disaster

[moof1138]

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.