Invasive species crowd out wildflowers

A before-and-after picture is indeed worth 1,000 words. To read the words that explain what's behind the unscenic absence of California lupine near Salinas and elsewhere, go here.

Tamarisks good for the environment?

Maybe not (I and other knowledgeable lovers of the Desert Southwest’s environment shudder at the mere thought) but an ecologist and marine biologist make a paradigm-challenging argument that invasive species are often good for their new environment. They even claim invasive species can spur new evolutionary diversity among natives, either on their own or through hybridization with the invaders.

Critics charge that Dov Sax and Steven D. Gaines are wrong on many counts, most of which have to do with human-induced climate change speed, human-induced number and intensity of invasives, etc.

And, I think I’d have to agree, but read the whole story for yourself.

Weeds reflect global warming

A study of a western Maryland organic garden, a suburban Baltimore park and an inner-city Baltimore park, Lewis Ziska shows the future of global warming in terms of everyday flora.

The answer? Especially in central city areas, more weeds, taller weeds, more weed/trash trees and more pollen.

Why? Anthropogenic carbon dioxide benefits weeds more than crop plants.

Also, Ziska and Andrew MacDougall try to get people to think of “invasive” weeds, especially those on the prairies, in a new light — as passengers in, rather than drivers of, changes in fields.

Read the whole story for more insights.

More on Texas’ raspberry ants/Caribbean crazy ants problem

I hadn’t heard of these babies before, and even scientists aren’t sure where they came from, but probably the Caribbean, but they're becoming a Houston headache. Anyway, Helltown, you can keep these babies; we do NOT want them in Big D.

The one plus side they have is that they attack fire ants.

Flip sides?
• They bite humans, though not so painfully;
• They swarm electric lines and outlets, as shown, just like fire ants;
• They eat hatchlings of the endangered Attwater’s prairie chicken;
• They eat ladybugs;
• Like fire ants, they’re resistant to over-the-counter chemicals.

My dread? Not just them moving further north, but, at some point, a cross developing between either them and fire ants, or them and the large red ants of the desert Southwest.

The New York Times has more on this annoying critter that I hope to doorknob does not move up from Houston.

Texas A&M has biological details about this ant, including video:

Another species of Paratrechina, fulva, has caused great pestilence in rural and urban areas of Colombia. In many cases, they displaced all other ant species. Small livestock (e.g. chickens) may die of asphyxia. Larger animals, such as cattle, are attacked around eyes, nasal fossae and hooves. They have also dried grasslands due to their association with homopterans.

A&M notes these ants nest under almost any object that retains moisture.

And, despite my hopes for their geographical containment, A&M notes they have moved beyond the city of Houston itself and are likely to advance even further. Global warming should make north Texas more and more amenable to them, if they did come from the Caribbean. A&M says moisture will be the main limiter, perhaps more than semi-cool winters.