Having a little spring fever? You're not alone. The Vermont Invasives team has been dreaming about planting gardens and, naturally, invasive plant control. Join us at the Vermont Flower Show March 3-5. You can find information on invasive plants and forest pests while being surrounded by beautiful flowers. Attend our workshop on the emerald ash borer Sunday, March 5th at 2:00 pm. Learn more about our invasive plant coordinator and her display!
Thank you very much to the volunteers who helped staff our booth at this year's Farm Show and to the talented artists who helped design and build our E.A.Bean Bag Toss game!
Windham County Foresters, Sam Schneski and Bill Guenther, outline the threat of invasive plants on sugarbushes in Vermont. This article, published in the fall 2016 issue of Woodlot Tips, explains what makes a species "invasive", which invasive plants threaten Vermont sugarbushes, and offers management suggestions for landowners.
Some are disarmingly named, like the cutesy Chinese mitten crab. Others have names more indicative of their undesirable nature, like rock snot, an algae that slimes up cool forest streams.
They are some of more than 100 invasive species that conservationists must battle in New York State, which teems with a growing number of plants, birds, fish, insects, mosses, molds and fungi that actually belong somewhere else.
"Getting rid of invasive species is a Sisyphean task, and some ecologists have questioned whether the effort is worth it.... New findings from the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, suggest that the hard work (and money) invested can pay big dividends for pollinators—including insects, birds, and reptiles—and for the native plants they assist."
An aquatic weed is creeping across the Great Lakes region that grows really fast and is very hard to kill. Scientists don’t know a lot yet about starry stonewort, but they’re hurrying to find out more. The plant, which forms dense surface mats in lakes, first turned up in North America in 1978 in the St. Lawrence River in New York state. Researchers think it probably arrived in ballast water from ships entering the Great Lakes.
Species ranges are one attribute that can be altered by climate change. The geographic limits of where you find a species and where you don’t are determined by the species’ biology, specifically in what climatic conditions can it survive. For some species, that’s warm and dry climates, for others it’s cool and wet, or one of many combinations of temperature and precipitation. Where a species’ range margin might contract and where it might expand in the future depend on how the suitable climate moves on a map for any given species. Knowing where a species can survive is the first step to managing invasion impacts.
The arrival of spiny waterflea is bad news for North American fisheries.
The loss of more than 35,000 trees because of the Asian longhorned beetle was a bitter experience for many area residents. But a pancake breakfast hosted by Vermont foresters and maple sugar industry representatives Tuesday made that loss at least a little bittersweet.
Ethan Tapper, Chittenden County Forester for the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, reflects on his role negotiating the relationship between humans and the forested ecosystems of Chittenden County. In this article, Ethan expresses both his admiration for the resiliency of Vermont's forests and his concern for the impacts of invasive species.