Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Salt And Vinegar

A report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides details of a promising treatment for dealing with invasive sea squirts. Faced with an onslaught of the colonial tunicate Didemnum in Puget Sound, one Washington biologist is testing whether acetic acid is an effective control method. Preliminary results suggest that a simple spray of the vinegary liquid kills off the Didemnum, perhaps supplanting the need for the labor-intensive plastic wrap method of killing off these marine invasives. If the treatment is successful, the US will likely owe a debt of gratitude to New Zealand, which has employed a number of innovative control techniques to deal with Didemnum (details in this report).

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