[Native Gardening] Invasive plants like common buckthorn retain their leaves for up to four weeks longer in the fall – Syracuse researcher Jason Fridley finds potential advantage for exotic speices

 

New post on Invasive Plant News Invasive plants like common buckthorn retain their leaves for up to four weeks longer in the fall – Syracuse researcher Jason Fridley finds potential advantage for exotic speices by johnlampe Invasive plants take advantage of late Common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica),forming grean background, retains its leaves late into the fall. season photosynthesis by keeping their green leaves later in the fall than native plants.  This is the finding of a recent study by Jason Fridley published online in Nature.  The study compared related deciduous species such as Japanese honeysuckle (invader) and Canada honeysuckle (native), burning bush (invader) and bursting heart (native), and European buckthorn (invader) and Carolina buckthorn (native).  According to Fridley, this concept "was totally off of everybody's radar."  However, anybody who has worked to control an invasive species like common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) has long known that this late season persistence makes the non-native easy to identify for treatment.  Common buckthorn is the tree with green leaves in the late fall. What's new that the study offers is that these invaders continue to photosynthesize for almost four weeks longer in the fall than their native counterparts.   It is not certain that this gives the non-native species an advantage.  For example, the non-natives lose a source of nitrogen when their green leaves fall off before nitrogen still in the green leaf is absorbed into the stem and roots.  According to Fridley, the invaders may have co-evolved with another invader, Eurasian earthworms, which speeds decomposition of leaves  and may bring the nitrogen back into the invasive plant.  I don't find this hypothesis convincing (although I have no data to back up my position).  I have seen common buckthorn thrive in sandy soils with few earthworms.  Couldn't it just be that an invasive like buckthorn gains more by photosynthesizing longer than it loses by dropping green leaves?  Each year as the growing season extends due to global warming, invasive species such as buckthorn improve their advantage. johnlampe | May 10, 2012 at 8:43 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p1hcFD-a4 Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://invasiveplantnews.com/2012/05/10/invasive-plants-like-common-buckthorn-retain-their-leaves-for-up-to-four-weeks-longer-in-the-fall-syracuse-researcher-jason-fridley-finds-potential-advantage-for-exotic-speices/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com

__._,_.___

Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic

Messages in this topic (1)

Recent Activity:

• New Members 2

Visit Your Group

[The Yahoo! Native Gardening Group]

The oldest and most respected native and wildlife gardening message board on Yahoo!

When is the last time you've visited the Native Gardening Group homepage?  Participate in the discussion today by navigating to: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nativegardening>

To post a message to the Native Gardening group without visiting the homepage, please send an email message to: <mailto:nativegardening@yahoogroups.com>

To unsubscribe from the Native Gardening Group email list, send an email to: <mailto:nativegardening-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>

Please ask your friends to subscribe to the Native Gardening Group!  Just have them send an email to: <mailto:nativegardening-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>

Thank you, and happy gardening!

Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use

.

__,_._,___