In this conservation
project, you will be doing a survey of two invasive alien plant species,
Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam.
Both these plants were brought into this country in the nineteenth century as garden plants, but they have escaped and have now spread throughout the UK.
Why get involved?
There are not enough ecologists to monitor everything that's
happening in the environment. Everybody can help though, and we never
know how important that's going to be - perhaps very important.
Why worry
about invasive plants?
Very often, alien plants have no predators and may have
particular characteristics that enable them to be very successful in a
different environment. Then they spread unchecked, pushing out native
species.
There have always been extinctions and new species throughout evolutionary time, but it is only relatively recently that we have realised human activity has such a potential to wipe out other species. Also, our native species are very precious and cannot be replaced if we lose them. Plants are part of the intricate web of life, and if a plant is lost there may be knock on effects, for e.g., some butterflies will only lay eggs on one species of wild plant, so if we lose a plant it can mean a butterfly is lost as well.
If we lose a plant or animal, it means that genes are lost, reducing the pool from which we can draw our food plants or medicines or other bioactive chemicals which might help humanity, e.g., antibiotics.