Invasive Plants In The Southeastern US

Interesting article - "History of Southeastern Invasive Plants" - in the latest issue of American Nurseryman.

Out Of Biocontrol

An excellent piece in the Salt Lake City Weekly about the current furor over the impact that a beetle released to attack invasive tamarisk shrubs (Tamarix spp., saltcedar) is having on an endangered bird. Seems the releases of leaf beetle Diorhabda elongata as a biocontrol were a lot more successful than people had anticipated, often leading to massive tamarisk defoliations that left the nests of the Southwestern willow flycatcher completely exposed. Add to that some miscommunication between state and federal agencies and the tendency of tamarisk to take over wide swarths of riparian land, and you've got...a complicated situation.

Tip of the virtual hat to the Aridzona Weed News Forum for posting a link to this article.

Read Up!

The National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species (NECIS) has just published "An Action Plan on Invasive Species" aimed at effecting change in the policies set by both Congress and the President of the United States regarding invasive species. Specifically, NECIS, which is comprised of 17 different non-governmental organizations, is asking for the following five actions to be taken:

1. Screen intentional imports
2. Prevent inadvertent introductions
3. Fund early detection and response
4. Create and support federal leadership
5. Fill other funding gaps

They're not asking for much, are they? :-) Want to learn more? You can download the full report here.

(Thanks to a member of the ALIENS-L listserver for posting a link to this story.)

Expanding The Pythonosphere

Think you can rest easy in your temperate perch while tropical places like Florida deal with a burmese python invasion of Everglades proportions? Think again. A press release from the USGS details a new report on the potential range of those invasive snakes (Python molurus bivittatus), and it includes the entire southern third of the USA. When researchers ran the model again, taking potential global warming changes into effect, the projected python range got even bigger, stretching up as far as New Jersey and southern New York on the east coast. While these predictions are only taking climate-based models into consideration, a full risk assessment for the burmese python and several other non-native snakes is expected by 2009.

Thanks to Allan I. for sending in a link to this story.

WeedAware

This coming Sunday marks the beginning of the 9th annual "National Invasive Weeds Awareness Week" here in the USA. NIWAW is held every year in Washington D.C. and is an opportunity for those concerned about invasiveness species to hear about invasive plant projects across the country and to get tips that will help them more effectively represent themselves as constituents to their own lawmakers.

If you're interested but you can't make it to NIWAW 9, you should still check out their website for some helpful documents to read.

Deep Woods On

The internet is hoarding massive amounts of data, yours for the viewing if only you know where to look for it. Take for example the Exotic Forest Pest Information System For North America. A joint effort of international organizations and government agencies from the USA, Canada and Mexico, ExFor is a relatively small but incredibly detailed database of pests that threaten forest plants, from fungi and viruses to insects and other invertebrates. So far, there are only about 180 species listed in the database, with profiles for more than 140 of them. The profiles include risk assessments regarding the potential for each species to establish in North America and to cause economic damage. A complete list can be viewed here, though some of the full reports are provisional and not yet available to the public.

The Continental

File this one under "It's About Time!" As recently as a few months ago, the USDA's PLANTS database called a plant species "native" if it was considered native in any part of the US or its territories. This was particularly frustrating in cases, for example, of tropical species that have been recorded only in Puerto Rico, or for species native to the mainland US but considered introduced in Hawaii. I am happy to report that the PLANTS database now acknowledges that being native to a political part of the USA is not the same as being native to the entire American landscape:

Note the red box I've drawn on the screengrab above - the database now clearly separates native/introduced data for each plant species into the following categories:

1. The "Lower 48" states (every state but Alaska and Hawaii)
2. Alaska
3. Hawaii
4. Puerto Rico
5. The US Virgin Islands
6. Canada! No, really!
7. The Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (A French territory off the Atlantic coast of Canada!)

This is a great step forward for what is already an extensive and highly valued source of plant data for the US.

See you later, Alligator

Evidence is mounting that alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)) can transmit West Nile virus (Flavivirus sp.), according to this article from The Idaho Statesman. An Idaho man handled infected baby alligators, shipped from Florida, and later came down with a mild case of the virus. Hundreds of the gators died after arriving at the gator farm where the man works, and the rest of the 1,000 that were imported were later destroyed. While the method of infection is not certain, the man does not remember being bitten by a mosquito, and no West Nile-infected mosquitos have been found within state lines. Someone should lets folks in Louisiana know about this; this story from The Advocate states that alligator-to-human transmission is not possible.

The Good and the Bad?

Two intersting blurbs about water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) today. First, the Herald Tribune reports that a scientist has developed a way to use populations of the invasive aquatic plant to remove excess nutrients that pollute stormwater runoff. The best part is that once the water is clean, the water hyacinth is removed and turned into a supplement for cattle feed. Read the article and you'll see that this is no fly-by-night project.

Also in the news today is a report from the India Times that water hyacinth invasion leads to an increase in dengue fever (Flavirus spp.). When water hyacinth populations take over a body of water, vegetation below the surface is shaded out and decays, leading to a loss of oxygen in the water. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease, and it is suspected that the fish that would normally eat mosquito larvae are being suffocated.

Thanks to a member of the ALIENS-L listserver for posting link to these stories.

Mosquitos Bite

With all the press about the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) being found in the U.S., little attention has been given to its distant cousin, the Asian bush mosquito (Ochlerotatus japonicus). Turns out O. japonicus has been in the U.S. since at least 1999, the year it was first found in the southeast. Now, as reported at WBT.com, the mosquito has been found as far north as North Carolina. While much more likely to carry West Nile virus, this species is a much less aggressive biter.

Thanks to Dave Barry's blog for posting a link to this story.

No Playing with Possums

As of July 11, 2002, the U.S. has officially banned the importation of the Brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). This marsupial, native to Australia, was introduced to New Zealand during an attempt at establishing a fur trade. New Zealand is now overrun with the creatures, and the U.S. wants to avoid the same thing happening here. Over the past decade, there have only been a few reported imports of the species into the U.S., where Brushtail possums are sometimes kept as pets. Because they can carry Bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium spp.), feral Brushtail possums would be a major threat to U.S. agriculture.