Saturday, June 19, 2010

Blue Team: Daniella Garcia

Anyone living in Florida has lived around Invasive plants, are plants that are nonnative species growing where they are not wanted. The most common invasive plant would be the weeds, which may grow all over gardens and in lawn area. These invasive plants are found in many of our Florida lakes since the 1950.


Invasive plants may be produced by imports of different plants from other countries, produced by fertilizing lawns, and animals carrying plant that is affecting our lakes. However there are solutions in trying to clean up the invasive plants. There are three ways to handle invasive plants, mechanically, biologically and chemically.

“Nonnative animals (fish and insects) are used to control invasive plants,” Dr. Jim Cuda, Associate Professor Biological Weed Control said at his station at the Summer Jouralism Vistitation Program.

Submerses plants are controlled mechanically by a machine that can cut five feet deep and five feet wide. This helps submerses plants from growing rapidly in Lake Alice by the University of Florida.

“ Shallow lakes in Florida would have more of the invasive plants since it needs so much sun light to grow and are found in monsoon climate,” Dr. Bill Haller, Professor and Acting Director said at UF.

Submerses plants are also controlled by the Chinese Grass Carp which eats the invasive plant that are in the lakes around Florida. However, the Chinese Grass Carp also eats the native plants that are are in the lakes as well.

There are also invasive animals that may come from all over the world and have damaged some of the environment and have become nuisance to people in their home environment. An example of an invasive animal would be the Cuban Tree frog. This animal can be found all over Florida and has come to be an annoyance to people.

“You need to know for sure if the animal will bring harm to the environment,” Dr. Steve Johnson, Assistant Professor of wildlife Ecology said at UF. “The weather does have an impact on the animals by lowering their living rate in the cold however it does not get rid of the animals completely.” He said

Some people may wonder where these animals may come from or how they do get here. Well all of these animals can be imported into the country or are brought from other countries to help our problems with invasive plants. The animal import is a huge industry that has become global and gotten huge over the last 10 to 15 years.

However, the industry is getting paid by taxpayer’s money to find ways to help our lakes become more environmental friendlier and healthier to the environment around us. This is a huge cause that has been going on for over 60 years now.

The invasive plants and animal may never go away all together; however, if the state or even country could help by being more aware of the environment and to take care of what really is happening to the environment around us to get better.

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