Spoileds Of War

Interesting article over at HAARETZ.com about the invasion of the blue acacia (most likely the blue leaf wattle, Acacia saligna) in Israel. Seems that the tree, native to Australia, was once planted across the country to stabilize sand dunes and create forests across the landscape. Once established, it began to spread on its own, helped in part by the proliferation of fires caused by wartime activities. An effort is now underway to manage down populations of this species by injecting them with the herbicide glyphosate. A second research project is testing controlled burns as a way of destroying seed banks...I assume that would go hand in hand with restoration/native plantings to avoid repopulation from acacias adjacent to the burned areas. Blue leaf wattle was also once widely planted in South Africa, which also considers it an invasive species.

Weekend Blog Blogging

The past week in invasive species via the rest of the blogosphere:

• Missouri Stream Team #2945 discovered evidence of someone dumping the contents of their aquarium in the Spring River...either that or Missouri's riverbeds have got naturally royal blue gravel :-).
• Hoosier Wordsmith muses about planting English ivy...and later unplanting it.
• The From the Field blog has a post about soil sampling as a way of learning more about the distribution of black and pale swallow-wort.

Fun with Google

Searching the internets...

• Invasive species: 1,880,000 hits in Google Search (an 18% decrease since February 2007, continuing the downward trend)
• News stories about invasive species: 1307
• Images tagged with invasive species in Google Images: 97,300
• Journal articles and books tagged with invasive species from Google Scholar: 237,000
• Books tagged with invasive species: 2088
• Patents tagged with "invasive species" (strict search): 27, including several related to ballast water management and these cool plant-cutting shears that simultaneously apply herbicide as you cut!
  
  
• Top 5 searches that led people to the ISW over the past 30 days:
  • invasive species (boring, I know, but we're in the top ten results!)
  • purple loosestrife
  • Japanese knotweed
  • bittersweet (Hmm..a seeming plant trend here, but could some of those folks been looking for chocolate?)
  • neon green iguanas (No, I don't know why "neon" is so important either!)
  
  
  
• Top geographic location of visitors to the ISW over the past 30 days: Washington state, USA.
• Most popular post over the past 30 days: New and Notable.

A Mile Wide

Islands Business is reporting that Fiji and Papua New Guinea are about to become home to a fungus that is a promising biological control agent. The rust fungus, Puccinia spegazzinii, has been previously used in other parts of the world to control the invasive mile-a-minute weed (Mikania micrantha, not to be confused with Persicaria perfoliata, the mile-a-minute vine we know too well here in the mainland US). Scientists have been rearing the fungus on in quarantine on Fiji for a while now, and are set to begin releasing it into the wild before the end of the year. Farmers that grow kava (Piper methysticum) as a crop are hoping the fungus brings them some relief, since Mikania is a host for a virus that is known to attack kava as well.

Bonus points to Island Business for using scientific names in their report.

Pikes Have Peaked

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Northern pike (Esox lucius) in Lake Davis, along with most of the other fish, appear to have been rotenoned away. Following a serious application of the pesticide rotenone, over 40,000 pounds of dead fish have been removed from the lake. An official noted that Northern pike seem to be more affected by the poison, so there's a chance there might still be some native trout alive in there. Restocking begins later this fall.

Working Class

The efforts of BIO 648, my invasive species class from last semester, can finally be seen online! Check out their class project, a set of seven species profiles full of information about the biology, ecology and management of plants and animals that are up-and-coming invaders in the New England region. A semester's worth of research went into this project and I think it shows in the quality of the profiles. Congrats everyone!

The Taxa Man

According to this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, homeowners in Pennsylvania can now get their very own environmental audits - for free! Audubon Pennsylvania has partnered with Friends of the Wissahickon to sponsor the program, which involves a visit to the homeowner's property from the Audubon at Home program. Once there, an Audubon staffer will survey the property and point out all of the invasive plant foibles. Participants also get lots of advice on native plant alternatives and how to make homes more inviting to local wildlife.

It turns out there are actually lots of options, at least in the Pennsylvania area, if you are looking to getting your own home an environmental audit, though a fee is typically required. If you live in the Northeastern USA and want to check out some alternatives to replace your invasive plants, you are also welcome to play with this tool my lab developed using the nursery catalog of the New England Wildflower Society.