May 3rd was "kNOw Ivy Day" in Portland, Oregon, a city known for its hatred of English ivy (Hedera helix). According to a report from The Oregonian, this is "the world's largest English ivy removal project."
Thanks to the Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers site for linking to this story.
As officials in Florida search for the cause of the massive algal blooms of Caulerpa brachypus appearing in coastal waters, attention has turned to the deep injection wells used to dispose of treated wastewater. According to this report from The Stuart News, Martin County's County Commissioner expressed concern that nutrients from the wells could be seeping into the lagoons and contributing to the algal growth. There's talk of banning the wells, but it is likely further studies will be done before making such a drastic decision.
A while back I mentioned that the Union of Concerned Scientists published a report on invasive species in Texas. They have actually been working on projects for several different states, and recently released this report for West Virginia, as well as this report for the same state but focusing on aquatic invasives (both files are in .pdf format). Almost a third of all plant species in West Virginia are non-native.
The Wildland Invasive Species Team of The Nature Conservancy has put together a nice Powerpoint presentation titled "Understanding the Impacts of Invasive Plants in Natural Areas." They encourage you to preview the Powerpoint file, and then download it for use in your own presentations. Helpful comments accompany the dozens of nice photos of invasve plants that are included, along with graphs and bullet lists.
Thanks to a member of the ALIENS-L listserver for posting this information.
In all fairness, I must post this link - a reply to a scathing editorial published in The Barbados Advocate. The original piece, written by the president of the Barbados Herpetological Society, was the subject of in a previous ISW entry. The rebuttal brings up several points about the non-native species in question and whether these pets would truly pose a threat to the environment if they escape.
Foresters in Montana have banded together to come up with a plan to contain invasive plants in Bitterroot National Forest, and hopefully prevent them from spreading into nearby Big Hole Valley, according to this story in the the Missoula Independent. You can read the details of their plan on the Noxious Weed Treatment Project web site (files are in Adobe Acrobat format).
One way to get an up-to-date view of molecular research on invasive species is by using NCBI's Entrez retrieval system. Any new DNA or amino acid sequences are required to be submitted to GenBank, and searching it is a great way to keep up on current work. This April, nucleotide sequences were submitted for many invasives, including tree of heaven (AIlanthus altissima), purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), and the Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis). (To limit your search by date, click on the "Limits" tab.)
