Invasive Plants In The Southeastern US

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

The Age of Aquaria

Conservation Maven has an article about an interesting new study exploring aquariums as vectors for the accidental introduction of exotic species.

Around The World

A recently published study from the Global Invasive Species Program (GISP) showed that on average, every country has 50 invasive species making a negative impact on biodiversity. Want more details? Check out the full publication.

Some Light Holiday Reading

New from the Bureau of Reclamation: Inspection and Cleaning Manual for Equipment and Vehicles to Prevent the Spread of Invasive Species. Who knew there was such a thing as an "Under-vehicle inspection mirror"?

Spurgeplus

ARS News has the results of a study showing that aerial spraying of herbicide on leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) on ranchland led to increased populations of the spurge and had a decade-plus impact on the native plant species there. The study looked at the after effects of a one-time application of the herbicide - presumably, more spraying would lead to a reduction in the amount of spurge, but would also further negatively impact the native plant species.

Mother May I?

Mother Jones has an interesting article this month titled "What Invasive Species Are Trying to Tell Us." It covers invasive species from an Australian point of view but also comes full circle with descriptions of the way that the lionfish (Pterois volitans) and other species have become problems from Queensland to the Florida coast. Definitely worth a read.

Contracting The Pythonosphere?

A while back the ISW featured a post about a USGS study that predicted the potential range for the Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus) encompassed the entire southern third of the USA. Now a new study published in the journal PLoS One disputes those claims, concluding that the range of the snakes is not likely to expand beyond Florida. The second team of researchers, from the City University of New York, claim the USGS study is faulted and that global warming will actually *shrink* the suitable American habitat available for the pythons. Want to know who to believe? Decide for yourself: check out the CUNY paper here, and the USGS paper here.

Times Is Marching On...And Times...Is Still Marching Onnnnnnn

The invasive species world will likely be buzzing about this New York Times article (if they force you to log in, try bugmenot) pointing out that introduced species very rarely lead to native species extinctions. Read the NYT version and discuss amongst yourselves, or go whole (feral) hog and devour the original research article, available for free in its entirety (and free from the creepy illustrations in the NYT article), brought to you by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Get Consolidated

How would you like to own a copy of the "Consolidated list of environmental weeds in New Zealand"? You now can, as it's a free download from the NZ Department of Conservation. Maybe, though, the right question to be asking is instead "How can New Zealand consolidate a list of weeds when more that half of their flora is introduced?" They manage to do a good job of it, narrowing down the list to 328 plants, and displaying the whole thing in a nice set of tables in the Appendices that are just begging to be mined for data :-). Some notable entries:

• Prunus persica (Peach!) as an island invader
• Spartina alterniflora (smooth cord grass) - is there anywhere we haven't introduced that plant, including our own West Coast?
• The knotweeds listed under genus Reynoutria - I thought the battle of genera was narrowed down to Fallopia vs. Polygonum long ago, but then here comes Reynoutria bouncing back!

A pretty interesting read, and one many of us outside of New Zealand would never have seen had the government not released this doc to the internet. Thanks to Andrew B. for sending in a link!

Worth The Risk Assessment?

Should the USA implement Australia's thorough weed risk assessment system to protect itself from new plant invasions? A recently published study coming out of the University of Florida and The Nature Conservancy says the Australian WRA would do well if applied in other parts of the world, and one author points out that it could save America a lot of money to prevent invasions rather than fight them after the species have already become established. Read more in this press release or check out the peer-reviewed article in the journal Diversity and Distributions. In fact, while you're there, you can dive into the entire volume, which is currently being offered for free by Blackwell Publishing. It's chock full of invasive species goodness! Uh, I mean badness. Oh, you know what I mean!

Book 'Em, Weedo!

There is a new online version of the Global Compendium of Weeds available, and it's a big improvement over the previous version. The old online GCW, though quite an amazing repository of information, was a mere sampling of the over 20,000 species of weedy plants listed in the hard copy. The new online GCW has been updated to feature over 28,000 plants, and best of all, has finally taken a big step towards taking advantage of some of the benefits electronic media can have over plain paper. In the old online version, each species page had a list of references by number, pointing you to a ginormous web page of references where you had to look each number up - very similar to the hard copy. The new version has the references listed directly on the species page, along with the classification given to the species by each reference (endearing terms like "casual alien," "garden thug" and the standard "agricultural weed").

Whereas most invasive species guides tend to be region specific, the Global Compendium of Weeds truly has worldwide coverage. It was surely a massive effort to bring the GCW to a second edition, and the ISW gives kudos to Rod Randall for providing free online access to this valuable resource.

New in the Literature

Long overdue list of recently published journal articles about invasive species:

• "Invasive range expansion by the Humboldt squid, Dosidicus gigas, in the eastern North Pacific" by Louis D. Zeidberg, and Bruce H. Robison. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104(31), pp. 12498-12950. (Weird, is that a typo of Zoidberg?)
• "Reduced plant–soil feedback of plant species expanding their range as compared to natives" by ROY H. A. VAN GRUNSVEN, WIM H. VAN DER PUTTEN, T. MARTIJN BEZEMER, WIL L. M. TAMIS, FRANK BERENDSE, ELMAR M. VEENENDAAL. Journal of Ecology. 95(5), pp. 1050-1057. (Just one of several interesting articles in that volume's Invasion Ecology section!)
• "Invasive plants and their ecological strategies: prediction and explanation of woody plant invasion in New England" by Patrick M. Herron, Christopher T. Martine, Andrew M. Latimer, Stacey A. Leicht-Young. Diversity and Distributions. 13(5), pp. 633-644. (In yet another invasives-filled issue!)
• "Abundance, species richness and feeding preferences of introduced molluscs in native grasslands of Victoria, Australia" by KELLY D. HOLLAND, MARK J. MCDONNELL, NICHOLAS S. G. WILLIAMS. Austral Ecology. 32(6), pp. 626-634.
• " Productivity alters the scale dependence of the diversity-invasibility relationship." by Kendi F. Davies, Susan Harrison, Hugh D. Safford, Joshua H. Viers. Ecology. 88(8), pp. 1940-1947. (California grasslands)
• "Dissecting the evolutionary impacts of plant invasions: bugs and beetles as native guides" by SCOTT P. CARROLL, CHARLES W. FOX. Global Change Biology. 13(8), pp. 1644–1657.
• "Disturbance, invasion and re-invasion: managing the weed-shaped hole in disturbed ecosystems" by Yvonne M. Buckley, Benjamin M. Bolker, Mark Rees. Ecology Letters. 10(9), pp. 809-817.
• Also, be sure to check out 22(9) of Trends in Ecology & Evolution, which has a special Focus on Biological Invasions. Too many interesting review articles to list them all here!

New in the Literature

Recently published journal articles you might find interesting:

• "Resource-use efficiency and plant invasion in low-resource systems." by Jennifer L. Funk & Peter M. Vitousek. Nature. 446, pp. 1079-1081. (Or read the newsy version here)
• "Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica disperse seeds of Rooikrans Acacia cyclops, an invasive alien plant in the Fynbos Biome." by LES G. UNDERHILL and JAN H. HOFMEYR. Ibis. (Thanks, Nuthatch!)
• "Aspidistras, amphipods and Oz: Niche opportunism between strangers in a strange land." by JOHN G. CONRAN, JOHN H. BRADBURY. Plant Species Biology. 22(1), pp. 41-48. (pollination of an introduced shrub by an introduced pollinator)
• "Preventing horticultural introductions of invasive plants: potential efficacy of voluntary initiatives." by Jennifer W. Burt, Adriana A. Muir, Jonah Piovia-Scott, Kari E. Veblen, Andy L. Chang, Judah D. Grossman, and Heidi W. Weiskel. Biological Invasions. (link is to full pdf of article)
• "High seedling relative growth rate and specific leaf area are traits of invasive species: phylogenetically independent contrasts of woody angiosperms" by Eva Grotkopp and Marcel Rejmánek. American Journal of Botany. 94(4), pp. 526-532.
• "Compositional similarity among urban floras within and across continents: biogeographical consequences of human-mediated biotic interchange" by FRANK A. LA SORTE, MICHAEL L. McKINNEY and PETR PYŠEK. Global Change Biology. 13(4), pp. 913-921.
• "Altered stream-flow regimes and invasive plant species: the Tamarix case" by Juliet C. Stromberg, Sharon J. Lite, Roy Marler, Charles Paradzick, Patrick B. Shafroth, Donna Shorrock, Jacqueline M. White, and Margaret S. White. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 16(3), pp. 381-393. (saltcedar)
• "Invasiveness and homogenization: synergism of wide dispersal and high local abundance" by Michael L. McKinney and Frank A. La Sorte. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 16(3), pp. 394-400.

New in the Literature

Some light reading for the holiday weekend (in the USA anyway):

• "Commercialized European bumblebee can cause pollination disturbance: An experiment on seven native plant species in Japan." by Kenta T, Inari N, Nagamitsu T, Goka K, Hiura T. Biological Conservation. 134(7), pp. 298-309. (Bombus terrestris; .pdf) - via Sandy L.
• "Introduced cryptic species of parasites exhibit different invasion pathways." by Osamu Miura, Mark E. Torchin, Armand M. Kuris, Ryan F. Hechinger, and Satoshi Chiba. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 103(52), pp. 19818-19823. (trematodes and the Asian mud snail, Batillaria attramentaria, also known as the Japanese false cerith)
• "Hybridization and Sexual Reproduction in the Invasive Alien Fallopia (Polygonaceae) Complex in Belgium." by Marie-Solange Tiébré, Sonia Vanderhoeven, Layla Saad and Grégory Mahy. Annals of Botany. 99(1), pp. 193-203. (Japanese knotweed and friends)
• "Regeneration and transformation system in Mirabilis jalapa." by Michele Zaccai, Guixia Jia, Xinlu Chen, Oksana Genis, Danit Feibin and Revital Gesua. Scientia Horticulturae. 111(3), pp. 304-309.
• "Competition between two invasive Hydrocharitaceae (Hydrilla verticillata (L.f.) (Royle) and Egeria densa (Planch)) as influenced by sediment fertility and season." by C. Monya, T.J. Koschnick, W.T. Haller and S. Muller. Aquatic Botany. 86(3), pp. 236-242.
• "Clone-specific differences in Phragmites australis: Effects of ploidy level and geographic origin" by Dorte L. Hansen, Carla Lambertini, Arunothai Jampeetong and Hans Brix. Aquatic Botany. 86(3), pp. 269-279.
• "Growth of three submerged plants below different densities of Nymphoides peltata (S. G. Gmel.) Kuntze" by Danial Larson. Aquatic Botany. 86(3), pp. 280-284.
• "Optimal detection and control strategies for invasive species management" by Shefali V. Mehta, Robert G. Haight, Frances R. Homans, Stephen Polasky and Robert C. Venette. Ecological Economics. Article in Press. (modeling)

New in the Literature

It has been way too long since I did one of these...

• "Influence of obligate parasite Cuscuta campestris on the community of its host Mikania micrantha" by J. Y. LIAN, W. H. YE, H. L. CAO, Z. M. LAI, Z. M. WANG & C. X. CAI. Weed Research. 46(7), pp. 441+. (biocontrol)
• "Fine-scale population genetic structure of a wildlife disease vector: the southern house mosquito on the island of Hawaii" by NUSHA KEYGHOBADI, DENNIS LaPOINTE, ROBERT C. FLEISCHER and DINA M. FONSECA. Molecular Ecology. 15(13), pp. 3919+.
• "Genetic divergence in the small Indian mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus), a widely distributed invasive species" by CARL-GUSTAF THULIN, DANIEL SIMBERLOFF, ARIJANA BARUN, GARY MCCRACKEN, MICHEL PASCAL and M. ANWARUL ISLAM. Molecular Ecology. 15(13), pp. 3947.
• "Genetic structure of the star sea squirt, Botryllus schlosseri, introduced in southern European harbours" by SUSANNA LÓPEZ-LEGENTIL, XAVIER TURON and SERGE PLANES. Molecular Ecology. 15(13), pp. 3957+.
• "Establishment of transgenic herbicide-resistant creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.) in nonagronomic habitats" by JAY R. REICHMAN, LIDIA S. WATRUD, E. HENRY LEE, CONNIE A. BURDICK, MIKE A. BOLLMAN, MARJORIE J. STORM, GEORGE A. KING and CAROL MALLORY-SMITH. Molecular Ecology. 15(13), pp. 4243.
• "Resistance in introduced populations of a freshwater snail to native range parasites" by A. EMBLIDGE FROMME & M. F. DYBDAHL. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 19(6), pp. 1948+. (Potamopyrgus antipodarum, New Zealand mud snail)
• "Understanding the long-term effects of species invasions" by David L. Strayer, Valerie T. Eviner, Jonathan M. Jeschke, and Michael L. Pace. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 21(11), pp. 645-651.
• "Invasive behaviour of Lactuca serriola (Asteraceae) in the Netherlands: Spatial distribution and ecological amplitude" by D.A.P. Hooftman, J.G.B. Oostermeijera and J.C.M. den Nijs. Basic and Applied Ecology. 7(6), pp. 507-519. (a native "invader," also invasive in North America)

Also, be sure to check out the November 2006 issue (v. 94 no. 6) of the Journal of Ecology, featuring an invasive species section with five articles.

New in the Literature

Some light reading for the weekend...

• "Optimal eradication: when to stop looking for an invasive plant" by Tracey J. Regan, Michael A. McCarthy, Peter W. J. Baxter, F. Dane Panetta and Hugh P. Possingham. Ecology Letters. 9(7), pp. 759+.
• "Distributions of exotic plants in eastern Asia and North America" by Qinfeng Guo, Hong Qian, Robert E. Ricklefs and Weimin Xi. Ecology Letters. 9(7), pp. 827+. (I asked for a reprint of this one, always interesting to see invasives research coming out of Asia)
• "Genetic diversity of alligator weed ecotypes is not the reason for their different responses to biological control" by Jing Li and Wan-Hui Ye. Aquatic Botany. 85(2), pp. 155-158. (Alternanthera philoxeroides)
• "Potential selection in native grass populations by exotic invasion" by BRIAN A. MEALOR and ANN L. HILD. Molecular Ecology. 15(8), pp. 2291+.
• "ARE SOIL MITE ASSEMBLAGES STRUCTURED BY THE IDENTITY OF NATIVE AND INVASIVE ALIEN GRASSES?" by Mark G. St. John, Diana H. Wall and H. William Hunt. Ecology. 87(5), pp. 1314-1324. (Hint: The answer appears to be "no")
• "Population structure of Solanum carolinense along the Takano River in Kyoto, Japan as determined by amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis" by T IMAIZUMI, S KUROKAWA, M ITO, B AULD & G X WANG. Weed Research. 46(3), pp. 219-225. (Carolina horsenettle, an American native)

New in the Literature

Recently published journal articles:

Plants and Animals

• "Mechanisms of exclusion of native coastal marsh plants by an invasive grass" by TODD E. MINCHINTON, JULIET C. SIMPSON and MARK D. BERTNESS. Journal of Ecology. 94(2), pp. 342+. (Phragmites australis)
• "Ecosystem engineers as selective agents: the effects of leaf litter on emergence time and early growth in Impatiens capensis" by John R. Stinchcombe and Johanna Schmitt. Ecology Letters. 9(3), pp. 258+.
• "Expansion of Myriophyllum spicatum (Eurasian water milfoil) into Lake Nasser, Egypt: Invasive capacity and habitat stability" by Magdi M. Ali and Mohamed A. Soltan. Aquatic Botany. 84(3), pp. 239-244.
• "Impact of shading and cutting on the demography and composition of Mimosa pudica L., a ligneous weed species of tropical grasslands" by D. Magda, M. Duru, J. Huguenin and B. Gleizes. Grass and Forage Science. 61(1), pp. 89+.
• "INVASIVE CORDGRASS MODIFIES WETLAND TROPHIC FUNCTION" by Lisa A. Levin, Carlos Neira, and Edwin D. Grosholz. Ecology. 87(2), pp. 419-432. (Spartina spp.)
• "BROMUS TECTORUM INVASION ALTERS NITROGEN DYNAMICS IN AN UNDISTURBED ARID GRASSLAND ECOSYSTEM" by L. J. Sperry, J. Belnap, and R. D. Evans. Ecology. 87(3), pp. 603-615. (cheatgrass)
• The new online journal Aquatic Invasions has devoted its first issue to invasive crustaceans, mollusks and more.

General

• "Risk Analysis for Biological Hazards: What We Need to Know about Invasive Species" by Thomas J. Stohlgren and John L. Schnase. Risk Analysis. 26(1), pp. 163+.
• "Knowledge-Based Risk Assessment Under Uncertainty for Species Invasion" by Iftikhar U. Sikder, Sanchita Mal-Sarkar, and Tarun K. Mal. Risk Analysis. 26(1), pp. 239+.
• "Evolutionary responses of natives to introduced species: what do introductions tell us about natural communities?" by Sharon Y. Strauss, Jennifer A. Lau and Scott P. Carroll. Ecology Letters. 9(3), pp. 357+.
• "INVASION IN A DIVERSITY HOTSPOT: EXOTIC COVER AND NATIVE RICHNESS IN THE CALIFORNIAN SERPENTINE FLORA" by Susan Harrison, James B. Grace, Kendi F. Davies, Hugh D. Safford, and Joshua H. Viers. Ecology. 87(3), pp. 695-703. (modeling)
• "Biological control agents elevate hantavirus by subsidizing deer mouse populations" by Dean E. Pearson and Ragan M. Callaway. Ecology Letters. 9(4), pp. 443+. (Biological control insects used for spotted knapweed (Centaurea biebersteinii) provide a food source for deer mice)

World Weed Website

The website for the Global Compendium of Weeds has been updated with a new, improved search interface. For those of you not familiar with it, the GCW website, a joint effort of the USGS and the Western Australia Dept. of Agriculture, provides nomenclature, place of origin, and references documenting the weediness of hundreds of plant species. The online database is only a partial listing of the 20,000 species that will be included in the book version. It is unclear as to whether the website will be updated to include the complete species listing.

(Thanks to a member of the ALIENS-L listserver for posting info about the GCW website.)