Climate Change - Invasive Species

Invasive species issues are complex and interlinked with other complex and diverse constructs such as climate and atmospheric change, species shifts and biodiversity, as well as sustainable food and health questions. This interdependency is symptomatic of multifaceted questions that defies linear solutions. Invasive species are themselves, therefore, a threat both to managed agronomic systems (e.g. food supply) as well as ecosystem services (e.g. genetic diversity). Assessment of climate change dynamics in the context of the biological success of invasive species remains one of the most unrecognized threats associated with global warming science.
If the biological success of invasive species is strengthened as a function of climate change, then critical measures must be taken. The first universally recognized step is, to halt and reverse the anthropogenic climate drivers (e.g. human sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases) responsible for climatic change. Because the globe is already showing signs of climatic uncertainty, a second goal is adaptation science. The two goals are connected and interdependent, but not necessarily so perceived at first glance.

Understanding possible adaptation to changing climate dynamics and researching long term solutions to problems as well as new technologies for dealing with long and short term climatic system change are areas that necessitate support from and the sceitnfic community and the public. For example, while it is reasonable to decry the changes in temperature, carbon dioxide and ozone levels which may produce declining rice yields delivered from current strains of rice, Oryza sativa,how the agricultural community adapts to this challenge will reflect both mitigation and adaptation issues and priorities? How can they do so in the context of unprecedented threats from invasive species?

From a USDA ARS technical abstract, IDENTIFYING AND MANIPULATING DETERMINANTS OF PHOTOSYNTHATE PRODUCTION AND PARTITIONING, researchable issues abound: “Elevated temperature treatments negated any enhancement in rice yield at elevated carbon dioxide, which suggests that identifying high temperature tolerant germplasm will be key to realizing yield benefits in the future.” [Rice Production in a Changing Climate: A Meta-analysis of Responses to Elevated Carbon Dioxide and Elevated Ozone Concentration] (Ainsworth, Elizabeth[lhz1] )

In other words, we need to understand the implications of climate change and we need to be working on adaptation now. Present projections are that we will need an increase of 20% in cereal production (i.e. wheat, rice and corn) to keep pace with population demand by 2020. A report, Food Gap Widening in Developing Countries- One in Four Children Worldwide Will be Malnourished in 2020. October 26, 1997 states that “Demand for cereals, especially for livestock feed, will increase rapidly. People in developing countries are expected to consume twice as much meat in 2020 as they did in 1993, causing demand for feed grain to double.”

How are we going to feed ourselves? How will we clean our water supply? Where will we find air suitable for human life? I may presume too much, but I think it highly unreasonable that we shall go back to a sustainable hunter gather society with the current and project human population numbers. This statement means that we shall need technological solutions with sustainability assumed as a fundamental prerequisite. We shall be in need of technology which recognizes that the earth for the foreseeable future is a closed system with finite resource limits.

The same set of climatic variables that are affecting cereal yields may also be affecting invasive species impacts on both traditional agriculture and current ecosystem management. A clarion call for action from natural area managers has focused on invasive species as a major threat to rare and endangered species. Invasive species have visibly out-competed native species and caused increased pressure on remaining populations. According NatureServe, “Invasive species are now regarded as the second-leading threat to imperiled species, behind only habitat destruction.”

Invasive species have also adversely affected agricultural production. A report from the Goodlatte Subcommittee states that “Invasive species represent a serious threat to the viability of American agriculture, forestry, and ecosystems. Not only can these harmful organisms cripple production agriculture, but society pays a great price for these harmful species including unemployment, damaged goods and equipment, power failures, food and water shortages, environmental degradation, increased rates and severity of natural disasters, and disease epidemics. The most obvious harm is found in agriculture. Farmers and ranchers are constantly battling alien pests, weeds, and diseases. Decreases in yield and quality of crops and livestock are easily attributed to invasive species. Producers fight stubborn weeds and pests year round – whether preparing for the planting season, during the growing season or harvest.”

The interconnection between climate dynamics, crop production and invasive species is easily seen. All plant species require carbon dioxide, water, light, and nutrients. If one of these resources changes abruptly, plant species will respond differentially. For example, too much water and the cactus dies; too little water and the wetland fern succumbs. Too much sun and the black cohosh is fried; too little sun and the pumpkin will not fruit. Add or decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide and plant species also respond differently, some will have the capacity to process the increase more efficiently; others will quietly be over come by the resulting competition. As carbon dioxide changes in the atmosphere, knowing which species will be more competitive has implications for not only agriculture (e.g. which rice varieties will be the best to grow?) but to invasive species as well (e.g. will kudzu be more of a threat in the future?)

In addition, increasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide can result in changes in precipitation and temperature with subsequent results in species growth and adaptation. Here too, the same issues arise; how will we adapt agriculture to unprecedented changes in the environment that reflect temperature and precipitation extremes? How will these changes affect the success of invasive species and their subsequent impact on agriculture? Such complex issues underlie the need for more and immediate research while underscoring the complex connections between climate change, agriculture and invasive species.

In turn, invasive species concepts and challenges are connected to species shift. Species shift or species migration is movement of species from natural ranges in reaction to climate changes. For the layman this is not too hard a concept as humans do this on a regular basis. Snowbirds to Florida and skiers to the mountains are examples of in extremis of climate migration. In the long historical record of humanity, migrations for food, fuel, fiber, and feed are the movements of legend from the Germanic invasions of Rome to the emigration from Ireland during a time of famine. Species which once were unreliably hardy in Maryland now thrive, including but not limited to kudzu and fire ants.

The question then of ‘nativeness’ is no longer solely a question of where, but also of when. And more importantly, for the purposes of invasive species resource allocation, what are we trying to prevent, what are we trying to preserve exactly? If the threat is to endangered species then what are we to make of species shifts? If the rare and endangered are heading up and north, and the existing ecosystem is being stressed by climate change, what is the purpose of eradication efforts of invasives in ecosystem in flux? At the same time, we do know that preserving complex functioning ecosystems is important for the services provided and that invasive species pressure limits the ability of the system to provide these services, services such as clean water, clean air, and viable habitat.

It is once again not only natural areas which will feel the impact of species shift. “Rangelands will experience regional and local changes in temperature and precipitation. The CO2 has already increased to levels not experienced in the past million years and is projected to continue increasing far in the future. Plants have different sensitivities to temperature. Precipitation and CO2, and research suggest that plant shifts favoring some species over others is underway in rangelands. Research is needed to better understand such plant species shifts which have a tremendous impact on land’s utility. We need to use that knowledge to develop proactive management strategies that will help ranchers and public land managers adapt to climate change.” [From a presentation given to Maryland Senators Mikulski and Cardin’s staff, Dec 2008 http://www.nara-b.org/ )

According to a posting in ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2008), “…the distribution of many species is shifting because of climate change and changes in land use.” The feed-back loop of human activity on the environment and the environment’s impact on human activities becomes apparent in the previous quote. According to Dr. Lewis Ziska “one of the fundamental challenges we face in the 21st century is the unprecedented level of human-induced change.” [Controversies in Science Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Biology: The Overlooked Paradigm. DNA & Cell Biology Vol 27 Nov 2008]
For me this is a call for immediate and specific research looking for adaptive solutions.

BARC & NAL: The front line in the attack of killer tomatoes and other agents of terror

Today’s security threat seems to be tomatoes. A sudden, overpowering terror, affecting many people at once has struck causing consternation and fear resulting in a reinforcement of some citizens’ natural reluctance to enjoy vegetables. Legislators speak about control and elimination of the problem of unclean vegetables and fruits. They look for ways to legislate the challenge away.

Meanwhile, about twelve miles from the halls of power, the National Center for Agricultural Research, BARC, languishes, withering on the vine, having lost almost half its research capacity over the last decade or more. The United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, which, perhaps, should better be know as the Department of Food, Fuel, Fibers, Flowers and Forests has wide ranging impact on our quality of life, and buried within its huge oversight responsibilities under layers of acronyms is the Agricultural Research Service. The Los Alamos of Research in the areas of food, fuel, fibers, flowers and forests has seen flat budgets since the 1990’s.

Instead of funding research which in the past has produced effective work in human nutrition and crop health, environmental adaptation and protect, and increased safe production of food and fiber, while enhancing our flowers and forests, we let the primary basic research slowly decline. Rather than funding proactive possibilities in production techniques, we call for more after-the-fact reactive regulation. We of course need both not just one.
“The fresh-cut produce industry is a rapidly growing $10 to $12 billion a year industry, accounting for over 10% of all produce sales in the U.S., and has an annual growth rate in the double digits. However, along with the rapid development of this industry, new problems have arisen in the food safety area. Various sanitizers, which are effective in reducing foodborne pathogen populations on whole produce, are not as effective on fresh-cut produce. Also, the extensive use of these sanitizers has resulted in various foodborne pathogens developing resistance to them. Naturally occurring bacteriophages, or viruses of bacteria, may be viable alternatives to sanitizers.”[i]

This country should be clamoring for additional research in areas yet unimagined. And while we cry for enforcement and regulation, we quietly ignore a looming problem of increased CO2 on current crop yields. We worry about food safety, food, which we may not have in the decades to come. Rather than fund research into alternative crops for bio-fuel production, we remove food from the food supply to feed our energy needs. ARS BARC should be a leader in the study of alternative crops which would allow us to leave corn for food, but instead we allow a dozen researchers a year to retire or leave the service and then do find the money to replace them let alone increase the number of programs.

Critical new systems are needed as well as past enforcement practices. We must fund BARC, and its failing sister the National Agricultural Library, NAL, which stores and distributes the information we need to know to live better , safer, healthier lives.

[i] USDA ARS National Agricultural Research Center – Beltsville: http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=156730

Invasive Species & Climate Change

Invasive species and climate change are intertwined and interrelated. Discussing invasive plants without a grounding in climate metrics including CO2 levels will generate more hot air and fewer answers. It is interesting to me that invasive species awareness seems to have risen with CO2 levels. That CO2 would impact plant processes and growth is no surprise. I paraphrase Dr. Lewis Ziska, USDA BARS BARC, noting that one expects a change when one adds or subtracts water or nitrogen for example, so why should we not look for changes when we add or subtract carbon.

Some plants will process CO2 more efficiently than others; they will have a compentitive advantage which mat result in invasive response. Since Invasiveness is in some sense an ability to out compete, some species which can take advantage of the extra carbon will be in a position to out-compete other species. This phenomenon may perhaps explain why some plants, while introduced a century ago, are only now becoming a problem. Naturally, human disturbance and habitat alteration and or destruction play a role in the increased proliferation of invasive species.

C3, C4 and CAM photosynthetic pathways are also a consideration in the analysis of invasiveness and the upsurge we now are experiencing. Species with an inherent ability to process more carbon will perhaps have an innate ability to successfully compete with those plants which cannot use more carbon. As a tangential observation plant species which do not have supporting infrastructure such as branches and trunks, and which process carbon more efficiently, may divert their energy systems into growth. Vines such as kudzu provide and example of this potential, and explain somewhat the proclivity of vines to be problematic.

As we consider the impact of increasing carbon in the atmosphere on invasive plants, we also find that changes in basic climate such as temperature and precipitation produce stress in ecosystems which allow certain species to compete more efficiently. This brings into play the questions of native. If the climate changes, then we have a challenge with our simplified definition of native that is based on geography and a short time horizons. As invasive species solutions are offered which encourage the use of native only, we will necessarily quickly have to look for carbon increase effects as well as general climate modifications.

Moreover, invasive species issues constitute a core concern of eco-services which are found in a fully functioning self-sustaining eco-system. The complexity of the issues results in the wicked problem, or the wicked inconvenience (Invasive Species Conundrum: A Wicked Inconvenience) of which I have written previously. As we look for easy answers to complex problems, we provide avenues of unintended consequences. In a world which wants easy to digest, sound byte answers to everything, invasive species issues defy the desire. Banning plants without scientific inquiry and without thinking through the implication of climate change effect on the species behavior creates a set of alternative mitigation challenges complete with its own stakeholder groups’ attempts to simplify the resulting issues.

Invasive Species Conundrum: A Wicked Inconvenience

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent (deeply involved, thus strongly motivated) and well informed just to be undecided about them.”-- Laurence J. Peter The wicked inconvenience of invasive species reaches its tendrils into equally complex issues such as global climate change. Some plants out compete resident species taking advantage of increases in CO2. My conversations with Dr. Lewis Ziska, USDA BARC, on invasiveness and climate change add to the list of information necessary to making an informed decision about invasive species. Invasive plants would seem to have at least one characteristic, defined as those species, which take advantage of increases in CO2, and, therefore, out perform other species.

A nasty by-product of this idea is that, perhaps, our attempts to forestall and reverse invasive species incursion damage to natural areas is most likely akin to sticking our finger into a levee which has already been breached. If native species are stressed by temperature change and at the same time do not process the increase in CO2 as efficiently as the exotic or alien, or native species; then the native-only solution is doomed. A secondary result will arise in that some natives will be able to take advantage of the increase in CO2 and begin to upset the natural current balance of the eco-system at hand. In theory, here on the east coast we could see native poison ivy begin to out compete and upset the balance in natural areas, and to add to the confusion or complications, begin to increase in its toxicity.
The researchers of The National Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville continue there work which helps us manage our world. From invasive species projects with kudzu to examinations of increased CO2 on the biota of our world, they continue there needed research From an article in (c) 2007 Cox Newspapers, Inc. - The Daily Reflector
Record Number: 2273923 , June 28th, 2007

“Not only did the elevated carbon dioxide boost poison ivy growth, but it also increased the most toxic form of urushiol, the plant chemical that causes the rash in humans, Mohan and her colleagues found.Meanwhile, scientists and naturalists already have seen an increase in vines throughout much of the world over the two decades, though so far there is no comprehensive documentation of that increase. Still, the anecdotal evidence suggests that increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have boosted growth of poison ivy and other vines.That suggestion is supported by another study led by Lewis H. Ziska at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, in which poison ivy was grown in a laboratory in Maryland in conditions simulating carbon dioxide levels of 50 years ago and those of today. Poison ivy in present-day conditions grew about 50 percent faster than plants grown in the atmospheric conditions of a half-century ago."Poison ivy loves CO2," Ziska said. Because deer are attracted to poison ivy, Ziska also looked at what happens when leaves were stripped from the plant. He found that they grow back faster when higher levels of CO2 are present.The new studies have significant implications for forests as well as people. Vines such as poison ivy can do extensive damage to forest trees, potentially altering the composition of forests in the long term.”

Thus, we fall into one possible path of action which states that introductions of successful plants are a necessary reaction and a needed component of our current environmental confusions and challenges; we need to encourage diversity by replacing those plants which cannot adapt with those showing adaptive promise. This is the “there is no bad plant” school of thought. It is off-set by the “do not let anything new into the system” school of thinking which operates on the idea that if we can just restrict “new” introductions and remove “old” introductions, we shall all be able to return to the golden age of a distant imagined era of benign self sustaining eco-systems. I some times refer to the former school as the “Manifest Destiny” and the latter as the “Return to ‘Leave it to Beaver”, a highly prized time of wonder and innocence.

Both lines of reasoning ignore a fundamental principle of a wicked problem as both try to force a linear solution plan on a complex system in an effort to simply the problem. I suspect that an underlying reason is that dealing with the complexities directly tend to leave many people paralyzed with the challenge of uncertainty. Better to do something than to sit and think doing nothing. But a collateral problem of the do something from either point of view is that neither side wants to work for a center, consensus series of unending ever changing solutions. We divide into two opposing camps; one wants to plant everything, one wants to restore everything. Neither is addressing the other’s linear solution.

Invasive Species – A Wicked Inconvenience
Invasive Species; Wicked Inconvenience: part two
Weeds: Defining Inconvenience, Wickedly
Invasive species: more inconveniences of a wicked nature
Inconvenient question: Invasive species

Invasive Species Complexities: A Wicked Inconvenience

As I try to connect the various components and discussion that comprise the world of invasive species, I find myself more and more investigating areas of knowledge seemingly far removed from the world of traditional ornamental gardening. From my postings entitled: National Agricultural Research Center; Invasive Species, Climate Change & Poison Ivy and Invasive species, BARC, Kudzu and Bio-fuel to those on wicked problems: Invasive Species; Wicked Inconvenience: part two and Inconvenient question: Invasive species.

Now after a casual morning of web surfing I find: Recent developments in the science and management of invasive alien plants: connecting the dots of research
knowledge, and linking disciplinary boxes: ”Many new or less well-known aspects of plant invasions were discussed. For example: (i) The complexity of real-life systems was highlighted using quantitative food-web models. These show that changes in species composition caused by plant invasions could have serious consequences for higher trophic levels, and may greatly affect organisms at levels that have no direct connection with the invasive plant species in question. (ii) Evidence was presented of what was dubbed ‘invasional meltdown’, meaning synergistic interactions between invasive species that promote further invasions and exacerbate their detrimental effects. (iii) Particularly alarming was the revelation that various elements of global change (global warming, elevated atmospheric CO2, nitrogen deposition, habitat fragmentation) are already interacting to worsen the impacts of plant invasions. Some experimental results suggest that elevated CO2 levels have already had a marked effect on traits of some key invasive species in North America: increased biomass production, expanded leaf area and spininess, and enhanced pollen loads.1 All of these traits, alone or in combination, affect how these plants influence native species, and the invasibility of the ecosystems they occupy.”

The intertwined nature of two co-equal, co-evolving, and related problems is a key defining feature of a classic wicked problem. My efforts, which try to bring the public’s attention to inadequate and falling funding for the National Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, BARC: Funding for Research Continues to Fall, and to the companion agency, the National Agricultural Library, also come to mind, when I read this report on line. Trying to cobble together a stake-holder’s group on a no-budget, all volunteer basis to somehow prod our political leaders into funding and supporting work in not only invasive species, but feathers to plastic work, agricultural genetics, and remote sensing to name a few continues to be a challenge.

Given what I know about the National Library’s funding crisis, it is possible that someday in the near future, work like Dr. Ziska’s will possibly be funded by a foreign government grant, and the resulting paper will be unavailable to the congressionally mandated library, because they no longer have the budget to buy foreign scientific journals. The library needs around 3.8 million dollars to get back into the foreign journal subscription process, but I am having trouble getting a group of stake-holders interested in the problem. The National Library as of now can no longer afford foreign scientific journals.

And if this seems rather straight forward, just try to get funding to upgrade building that are over 70 years old. Vital to the study of invasive species is the science of systematics and the collections in some cases of which are over a century old. You cannot begin to speak of a species, if you cannot identify it. We should be working to create a national systematic building and center to house our endangered collections; instead we reduce their funding and hope that someone somewhere will have the presence of mind to take care of them even as universities try to unload them.

All of this is related to the difficulty of getting funding for invasive species and climate change. Even though there is a National Invasive Species Council, without the funding to actually encourage science and action, the power is limited to attempting to be a facilitator of communication of ideas and concept for federal agency competition for limited funds.

In some ways, this, then, is the challenge of invasive species, the wicked inconvenience; that each time I think I have a understanding of the stakeholders and their particular desired result, I find that any ability to focus is diffused and that since in the end all of us are stake-holders, I have no stake-holders to lobby and influence the funding process. The ever changing nature of knowledge and science means the end game remains in motion and long term, distinctly at odds with our craving for short term solutions that take place within a financial reporting cycle of a year or less. Attempting to get funding for projects that last a generation run counter to our present desire for instant success.

Invasive Species (Kudzu) Meets Fox News

The complicated issues surrounding invasive species comprise a wicked inconvenience. From my posting on February 18th, 2007: “8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.” As we struggle to fend off the encroachment of monocultures, and protect the diveristy of our eco-systems, an inconvenient truth lurks in the from of an co-equally infinite wicked problem: Climate Change.

The lack of funding and support for research in invasive species and climate change in analogous to the general decline in infrastructure both physical and intellectual. I have written about the plight of the scientific work underway at the National Agricultural Research Center (BARC) [Thursday, April 12, 2007; BARC: Funding for Research Continues to Fall] to little or no avail. Sometimes it seems that by the time we shall realize the enormity of the problem; that is, when we find our grain crops no longer produce the yield they once did, or that our native ecology is no longer self sustaining, and our native flora no longer lives where we have come to expect it, we will wonder why we did not fund research into new varieties and strains of food crops, alternative energy sources, and environmental stability.

Sometimes, we can combine two seemingly disparate streams of work to at least provide another tool in our arsenal against invasives and for energy needs, if we would only take the time to compel our political leaders to fund the work before the crisis overwhelms us. Quoting from Dr. Lewis Ziska, USDA BARC,

“Although carbon dioxide (CO2) is the principle greenhouse gas, it also represents the sole source of carbon for plants, and hence for almost all terrestrial life. Because current levels of atmospheric CO2 are less than optimal for plant growth, recent and projected increases in this gas are expected to stimulate the growth of a number of plant species. Although this aspect of climate change can be viewed as beneficial, the rise in carbon dioxide is indiscriminate in stimulating the growth of both wanted and unwanted plants. Because international trade has increased the biotic mixing of flora across many parts of the globe, unwanted plant species are becoming widely established. The severity of damage induced by these species and their panoptic scale has produced a new class of unwanted plants: invasive, noxious weeds. To determine whether rising carbon dioxide has been a factor in the establishment and success of such plants, we have compared the potential response to recent and projected changes in carbon dioxide between invasive, noxious species and other plant groups, and assessed whether CO2 preferentially selects for such species within ecosystems. A synthesis of literature results indicates that invasive, noxious weeds on the whole have a larger than expected growth increase to both recent and projected increases in atmospheric CO2 relative to other plant species. There is also evidence from a majority of studies, than rising CO2 can, in fact, preferentially select for invasive, noxious species within plant communities. Furthermore, there is initial data suggesting that control of such weeds may be more difficult in the future. However, the small numbers of available experiments makes such conclusions problematic, and emphasize the urgent need for additional studies to address the biological and economic uncertainties associated with CO2-induced changes in the ecology of invasive, noxious weeds.”

Trying to get one million dollars seems to be shouting in the wind, but I was able to coax a local Fox Network affiliate to broadcast the following: http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=3984577&version=1&locale=EN-US .

I could use your help in getting the word out in any way you think appropriate.

National Agricultural Research Center; Invasive Species, Climate Change & Poison Ivy

The work of the people and programs of the Beltsville, Henry A. Wallace National Agricultural Research Center touches everything from food safety to the changing environment. For those interested in the world of invasive species and the intersection of native challenges and exotic problems, the research, which is threatened by the chronic under-funding for USDA/ARS Beltsville over more than a decade, is an invaluable tool in the struggle to create a policy of action.

The land mangers and keepers of natural areas wage constant war on exotic weeds, which they have labeled invasive species. The general property owning or using public battles aggressive plants, insects and diseases which threaten personal health or security, as well as traditional notions of beauty and order. Explaining that the native poison ivy, (Toxidendron radicans), is not invasive in the mid Atlantic is a semantic dialogue which, for too many, is a squabble over distinctions not readily understood. [pictures from my garden]

Because invasive species issues are connected to issues of environmental and climate change, the wicked inconvenience is that solutions which are single objective defined such as the prohibition of sale of non natives, leads to confusion and adamant opposition. The general public wants as its priority a safe, secure, serene, and, syntactically easy to understand landscape; the managers and wardens of natural areas seek a working, self-sustaining eco-system.

The cry for native only, begs the question, native to when and where; the change in climate may overwhelm the answer. And so the work of Dr. Zizka, and those committed to the exploration of our changing world is of national importance. If a native plant, which by definition is a constituent part of a greater whole and therefore deserves and needs to be allowed to live, is at the same time growing in its ability to cause personal harm, we face a disconcerting controversy which muddies the over all invasive species conversation.

My conversations surrounding invasive species inevitably raise the question of plant adaptability and the question of carbon dioxide concentration change on the biota of a eco-system. Thus, when presenting invasive species issues to the general public, I am challenged to juggle harm to natural areas, change in plant diversity, climate change and its impact on the presumption of native, and the traditional definition of a weed. Because each stakeholder subliminally understands the complexity of invasive species issues, they result inevitably to using their goals to define for themselves what an invasive species are. Hence, for the traditional majority gardener, poison ivy is an invasive species, and English Ivy an ornamental workhorse. For the managers of natural areas, the reverse, of course, is true.

And so the work of BARC, continues to provide information necessary to the development of strategies to protect ourselves in the here-and-now and in the not-so-distant future. In order to grasp the hierarchies of complexities generated by the small/quick changes we see in our gardens and properties and, to which we feel we can react with some confidence, and the big/slow changes, which happen beyond our life horizon, we are dependent to some extent on the work performed at the national agricultural laboratory.
How will the public react to the following information, which they will experience directly and painfully when they work or play outdoors?

Although the data on poison ivy come from controlled studies, they suggest the vexing plant is more ubiquitous than ever. And the more-potent oil produced by the plants may result in itchier rashes. "If it's producing a more virulent form of the oil, then even a small or more casual contact will result in a rash," says Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md.
The latest research, led by Dr. Ziska, studied poison ivy plants in Maryland under different levels of carbon-dioxide exposure. One group of plants was exposed to about 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide -- about the same level found in the atmosphere in the 1950s. Another group was exposed to 400 parts per million of CO2 -- about the same level in the atmosphere today.
After about eight months, leaf size, stem length and weight and oil content of the plants raised at current carbon-dioxide levels were, on average, 50% to 75% higher than the plants under the 1950s conditions, according to the study, expected to be published this year in the journal Weed Science. Not only did the higher CO2 level double the growth rate, but it made for hardier plants that recovered more quickly from the ravages of grazing animals. [Climate Changes Are Making; Poison Ivy More Potent; June 26, 2007; Page D1]

Wicked Inconvenience: Invasive offences or Bamboo Fences

I just finished cherries and do not have the time today for an expose on bamboo. However, this little gem which I picked up from a Mid Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council thread quite nicely highlights the wicked problem nature of invasive species, plus the law of unintended consequences. A few months ago, I wrote about Miscanthus; there were a flurry of articles about the use of this species to generate bio-fuels. I seem to recall that one writer noted that we could generate half the state of Illinois’ electric power need if we planted ten percent of the states land acreage in Miscanthus. The story in April 9th Time Magazine is of the same ilk.

Somewhere buried in today's bamboo story, as a solution for your carbon habits, is some science, but as with all wicked problems, what we have here, are co-equal and co-evolving, wicked problems, unitary solutions for which will, have unexpected, unplanned, and unintended causal complications. I wish I had the time to to a cursory bamboo review; perhaps next time, until then, the story, and your thoughts?

26. Plant a bamboo fence
By Maryanne Murray Buechner
Article ToolsPrintEmail Bamboo makes a beautiful fence, and because it grows so quickly (as much as 1 ft. a day or more, depending on the species), it absorbs more CO2 than, say, a rosebush. Most homeowners have to restrict its growth, lest it get out of control. Do this, however, and you reduce bamboo's capacity as a carbon sink. Only large-scale plantings, which absorb CO2 faster than they release it, can favorably tip the scales. How big is your yard?