Invasive false brome grass is spreading, but Oregon’s insects are biting
University of Oregon biologist Bitty A. Roy explores the enemy release hypothesis that invasive plants thrive without their natural enemies, finding support but also discovering that insect generalists don’t mind the intruders.
Yesterday in the Tages Anzeiger from Thomas Widmer:
The process of a paper might be very long. 3 years ago I started my master thesis and now finally submitted the paper about it in Mycologia.
The good thing about my project is that at the moment I get a lot of parcels; almost every day. Earlier this year I asked several researchers in Europe to help me collect seeds. It’s a bit cheeper and greener than travelling around and do it myself. And now all the seeds arrive in different shapes. Yesterday I got a book about the botanic garden in Oslo. Today I got a green parcel with seeds from Plantago major and a lovely letter from Jokkmokk. And I am still waiting for a parcel form Island!
I spent the day at 1400m today. Luckily it was not so warm. We had to dig a lot and it was still pretty hot. See the results.
Field work at the moment is very much fun. I have to collect leaves from different elevations in the Alps. So I am driving around in the Alps up and down and collecting leaves. I have a lot of helpers that drive and collect and entertain. Last week I was on the Flüälapass and had lunch at a picturesque lake in Davos Laret.
just got it from my professor…
Plants are much more complex then you might think. They are not able to move around like animals. Therefore plants have to cope with the conditions at the place they were placed as a seed. Some plants have developed rather clever strategies. This gras for example (Poa alpina) occurs in the alps in a harsh environment. Because the growing season is very short and the life cycle (growth, produce flowers, make ripe seeds, seeds establish and growth) may not be completes in one season, the plant has developed a strategy called vivipari (born alife, like animals). It does not produce seeds but little seedlings. These have the advantage that they are already bigger than seeds and this enlarges the chance to survive.
Look what I found at our door: a bunch of baby spiders.
This week I went back to my „Swiss“ field sites. Three days in the field…
