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  • From: mIEKAL aND <dtv@mwt.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Research: Study Shows New Way That Benign Plants Become Invasive
  • Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 13:35:10 -0600

Research article as to why 'tame' plants in Europe arrive in the US and become invasive:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070227105553.htm

(...article is available online in the PNAS (http://www.pnas.org/) “Early Edition,” and will be published March 6, 2007, in the journal’s print edition.)

Re: reed canarygrass... brought in over time from various European regions, creating what we have here:

These multiple introductions, and subsequent interbreeding, create a kind of biological stacked deck: drawing on genetic variety from across the European continent, new strains have emerged in the US with higher genetic diversity and more potentially advantageous qualities than their species brethren across the Atlantic.

“It’s not that you’re taking the ones in France and moving them to the US and they’re suddenly invasive,” Molofsky said, looking over a green swath of reed canarygrass growing in a UVM greenhouse, “its that you move some plants, and then you move some from somewhere else and they recombine here to form something better, genetic superstars.”

The result: in America, reed canarygrass has developed traits, like faster emergence in the spring and larger root biomass, that allow it to become a rapid colonizer. In short, the grass is still the same species, but it has quickly evolved to be invasive.

And this has significance far beyond the headache of reed canarygrass.

. . .

Other plants may soon follow this path. “Some in the nursery industry argue, ‘well, we can have barberry here, because it’s not invasive in Vermont,’ My point is, ‘yes, not now, but keep introducing it and let it mix and with climate change we’ll have it later,’” Molofsky says. “Just keep planting it out there, and 20 years from now when it’s 2 degrees warmer you’re going to see it in the forest.”

from Univ of Vermont


from Connie, Bonnie and Judy
MAMGA Program and Education Committee
...Working to keep you informed



  • [permaculture] Research: Study Shows New Way That Benign Plants Become Invasive, mIEKAL aND, 03/07/2007

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