Site Name

Invasive Species

Short Description

What species are invasive, how to identify them, how they effect the native ecosystem, and how to deal with them.

Background

This section is long, but you can safely skip it if you are already aware of invasive species and don't care why I think such a site would be useful and fill an unmet need.

Definition: An invasive species is a non-native species that has spread into natural or minimally managed native ecosystems, forms self-sustaining populations, and becomes dominant or disruptive in that ecosystem.

Now that humans are moving all around the planet, species that are in balance with their native ecosystems have gotten transported to places where they have no natural controls. This has been done both deliberately and inadvertently.

Some of these transplanted species become invasive and cause serious harm. There are many examples. Just few well-known ones are:

• Chestnut blight from Europe that all but killed off the dominant tree in eastern North America over 100 years ago.
• Japanese knotweed introduced at Kew Gardens in 1850, which is now a major pest all over Great Britain.
• The spotted lanternfly accidentally introduced to Pennsylvania in 2014, which has rapidly spread to much of the northeastern US.
• Cane Toads deliberately introduced into Australia in 1935, and are now considered one of its worst pests.

Despite invasive species being a problem for 200 years and more, it wasn't a commonly recognized issue until the last 2-3 decades. While there are scientific journals for researchers and experts in the field, there are surprisingly few forums for discussion among non-experts working on the problem. There are various university and government web sites for disseminating information about particular species in particular areas, there is basically no place where non-expert but reasonably informed citizens can discuss problems, compare notes, and the like. This site would be one of the first on the internet for such a purpose.

Lay recognition of invasive species is quite recent. When I started the Town of Groton Massachusetts Invasive Species Committee in 2015, the first thing we tried to do was to see what the other invasive species committees around the state were doing. We couldn't find any. Eight years later in 2023 there are several, some of which looked to see what we were doing to get their efforts started.

Despite the public attention of the issue growing exponentially in the last few years, there is no easy way for the various independent efforts to communicate. There are government web sites and experts to help, but these are all one-way information dumps. A place for discussion and comparing notes between local efforts is missing.

Right now is the perfect time for an invasive species Q&A (and papers, see below) site to take off and become the major forum for disseminating information between the separate and rapidly growing non-expert but informed efforts. It would also be useful for individuals wanting to know how to deal with the knotweed in their back yard. I've already handled many such similar questions. It would be great to have a place to answer each question once in detail, then be able to point to the answers in the future. It would also be a great place to receive new questions. They can be answered once by possibly various people with different views, then seen by many.

Codidact is the perfect organization to host such a site, being non-profit and running on open-source software.

Categories

• Main Q&A. Let's keep all questions and answers about invasive species in one category for now. When the site takes off, it might make sense to split this by species, geographic region, or something else. We should get some experience before breaking up the Q&A into different categories. If we do it know, we'll probably get it wrong. Volume will initially be low, and multiple categories will only make the place look more empty.
• Papers. Each post is like a scientific paper, although the standards are less rigorous. For example, this is the place to report on a different treatment method you tried but hadn't heard of before.

  This category will be much like the Papers category on the EE site.

• Meta. Where we discuss the site itself, just like all the other site meta categories.

Long Description

This site is about invasive species, and all the issues related to them. That includes:

• Identification of particular invasive species, after at least some minimum research.
• Whether a particular species is invasive or not in a particular location.
• Natural history, life cycle, biological details, etc, of specific invasive species.
• Treatment methods, including pesticides. Results of tests comparing methods.
• Limited: Tools used for treatment, handling of equipment and chemicals used for treatment, etc. There should be an invasive species angle, or related to a problem common to dealing with invasive species that makes it more than just a greenskeeper question, for example.
• Ecological effect of particular invasive species.

We want to avoid:

• Random plant, bug, etc, identification picture dumps. There must be some reason to suspect an invasive species, and at least minimum research done to narrow it down.
• Report of finding an invasive in a particular place. We are not the place to report new findings. However, we might be able to help you find where to report them for your location.

On Topic examples

1. Here is a photo of a bug I found in the yard. It looks like it might be an Asian long-horned beetle. How can I tell for sure?
2. I found an Asian long-horned beetle in my yard in Nashawitch Massachusetts. How do I report this sighting? What should I do with the specimen?
3. Does it matter what time of year I foliar-spray phragmites with glyphosate? Does the plant absorb it more at some times versus others as long as the leaves are green?
4. I did tests comparing mechanical pulling, glyphosate spray, and triclopyr spray on garlic mustard. Here are the results.
5. I made an attachment to my sprayer for squirting directly into the hollow stems of knotweed. Here are the details of how to make your own and how it works (or doesn't).

Off Topic examples

1. Here is a photo of a bug I found in the back yard. What is it?
2. Hey everyone, I found an Asian long-horn beetle in Nashawitch Massachusetts.
3. What's better, a manual pump backpack sprayer, or one with a built-in battery and pump.

posted 8 months ago

Olin Lathrop‭

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