Bay invader threatens wetlands --- Grass could destroy mudflat nesting areas

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 07/21/03 | Rick DelVecchio

[bedolido]

A fast-growing marsh grass cropping up on the shores of San Francisco Bay looms as one of the nastiest invaders ever to hit the tidelands, experts and government officials say.

Introduced innocently in the 1970s to check erosion in the southern reaches of the bay, the grass is building toward a growth explosion that threatens to choke much of the bay unless landowners join to stop it, say officials and researchers studying the problem.

Wetlands experts working with the California Coastal Conservancy are leading a campaign to stamp out the existing 500 acres of the grass, Spartina alterniflora or East Coast cordgrass, before its growth rate speeds up and the invader becomes too costly to control.

"It's like a ticking time bomb," UC Davis researcher Alan Hastings said.

The 500 acres are scattered through 5,000 acres of tidelands on both sides of the bay south of the Bay Bridge. Three-fourths of the invasion is between the Bay and Dumbarton bridges, in mudflats, flood control channels and anyplace else where the plant's spidery roots can get a foothold.

Unless it's stopped, the infestation could turn half the bay's mudflats into tall-grass prairie within a few decades, environmentalists predict. The mudflats are crucial because they provide food and nesting for native and migratory shore birds.

"It could be that birds we take as very common birds in the San Francisco Bay Area could become rare, possibly even endangered as a result of this stuff taking over," said Mark Littlefield, watershed planning branch chief for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento.

The bay is so rife with transplanted organisms that the San Francisco Estuary Institute has called it one of the world's most invaded estuaries. The tidelands host an ever-growing menagerie of exotics like the Chinese mitten crab and the inland silverside, but environmentalists say the innocent-looking grass from the East Coast has the potential to become one of the most damaging invaders.

[bedolido]

[bedolido]

Ping!

[chiefqc]

Get the ACLU to take this evil grass to court and sue it for millions and millons of dollars.

[Tax-chick]

Californi's kudzu!

[Semper Paratus]

But the destruction of marsh grass in Southern Iraq was cited as a 1st magnitude ecological disaster!

[Blueflag]

A limnologist calls this natural process eutrophication.

Gee, what if the grassy areas can be shown to harbor protected species???? They'll be so conflicted.

[RonF]

It's not natural if it was introduced by humans. And it probably hasn't been there long enough to become habitat for any rare species that didn't already have habitat there.

[Poodlebrain]

I think we're overlooking the key point here. These experts and governmental agencies expect the landowners to solve the problem. I'd be willing to bet those same experts and agencies would challenge any development/use of the same wetlands by the landowners as not being in the public interest.

How many of the landowners do you think actively participated in the "innocent" introduction of the marshgrass?

[bedolido]

About 60 miles from Boise, Idaho they'll draining lake Cascade due to trash fish (can't remember the name) eating every other type of fish in the lake. Then the will kill all the trash fish, and clean up some pollution problems and refill the lake. They say it'll take several years to complete the project. Lake Cascade will become a popular place (again) for fishing, swimming and boating.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[HairOfTheDog]

Human beings introducing a foriegn invasive plant that takes over is a real problem. stronger invasives may push out better native food or cover plants.

Sometimes they are quite harmful, sometimes they aren't....

[Carry_Okie]

Sheep are more efficient with grasses. They destroy 98% of the seed.

You are forgetting that the bigger the environmental problem is, the bigger will be the budget to "fix" it (which, of course, never happens).

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The invader grass grows by cloning, spreading roots that form circular duplicates of the original colony. The clones clone, creating an ever-rising growth curve.

"What it looks like is an accelerating rate of invasion," UC Davis researcher Debra Ayres said. "Instead of exponential growth, we have greater than exponential growth."

I am searching my math handbooks for Greater than Exponential Growth

Have we every seen this before in Biological Organisms?

Found this site:

mathematical epidemiology information

[bedolido]

Sheep are more efficient with grasses. They destroy 98% of the seed.

There are obvious reasons why sheep cannot be used in the San Francisco area.

[Carry_Okie]

Actually, it is possible.

Some species, and expecially invasive exotics, are not optimally adapted to a specific niche when first introduced but do have the plasticity in their genetic makeup (i.e., they mutate rapidly) to accomodate different circumstances in but a few generations. After remaining in situ a few generations they adapt themselves genetically to the habitat by natural selection. That results in rising normal germination and survival rates, yielding exponential constants that change over time.

The result is that they appear at first not to be a problem. Their spread seems to fit the classical curve with estimated exponential constants based upon past behavior. Then, after being in situ for a few generations, their populations suddenly take off.

There's even a name for it. The first few years is sometimes called a "rest period."

[SierraWasp]

"UC Davis researcher Debra Ayres said. "Instead of exponential growth..."

Boy, oh BOY, do I ever know this fanatical activist!!!

Nothing this woman will ever say will ever be believed by this FReeper!!! She is a total NUTCASE that wanted to set fire to western El Dorado county, (where she lived in Cameron Park) to stimulate the propogation of a non-listed but supposedly threatened MULE EAR WEED!!!

She was down in Sacramento at a hearing in an attempt to get the weed listed as endangered and WEEPING uncontrolably because too many of us homeowners had caught wind of her fanatical scheme and FReeped the hearing and put a stop to it!!!

Her whole thing was to stop any more homes being built (like hers just was) on the hills surrounding Cameron Park and to establish a "Plant Preserve" with the help of the CA Native Plant Society through a pressurized land grab by the American River Conservancy to totally rip-off the property owner!

It gave rise to a "Property Rights Movement" in this county that last just long enough to help us elect a "champion" to represent that area on the Board of Supervisors. Two things caused the weed to germinate, otherwise it stayed dormant. One was, any disturbance of the soil and the other was wildfire!

In the 1970's, the "Quarry Fire" raced from just above Cameron Park, all the way south to Amador County in 4 hours, driven by a huge north wind. This woke up a lot of these weeds, bringing them to her attention as the ideal tool to stop anyone from building ANYTHING on THEIR land!

This whole plant preserve issue was ultimately designed and used to hold El Dorado hostage for a huge "contribution" of county taxpayer dollars to buy the devalued land from landowners that suffered the loss of all their investment backed expectations in order to get the county the rights to water it already had "county of origin" rights to, historically!

You bettcha, anytime any article quotes this freaked out fanatic, you're gonna git a big rise outta me!!!

There is enough truth in the invasive specie threat, without EnvironMental Communutty WHACKO's militant and aggressive treatment of legitimate landowners using government force and blackmail between levels of government to get their way, to find the RIGHT WAY to wage war on invasive weeds. See www.NaturalProcess.net

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Unreal!