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On a cool, February morning, eight volunteers gathered at Rancho Diana in Northwest Bexar County. They wore hiking boots, long-sleeved pants and shirts, were drenched in insect repellent and armed with loppers, hand saws, hand pruners, hatchets, flagging tape, cameras and GPS units. Their mission that morning was to locate, document and eradicate exotic invasive plants in order to help preserve native habitat and maintain the biodiversity of the property.
The volunteers were “citizen scientists” from the Balcones Satellite group of the Invaders of Texas program, a collaborative project managed by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center which trains volunteers to detect the arrival and dispersal of invasive species and report their findings to a statewide mapping database. Since it was founded in 2005, the Invaders of Texas program has trained 1150 citizen scientists in thirty-nine regional satellites. They have reported more than 12,000 invasive plant observations. Citizen scientist training sessions are held in various locations throughout the state and through an online course on their website.
Rancho Diana, where they gathered that morning, is a 1300-acre City of San Antonio Natural Area, home to endangered Black-capped Vireos, Golden-cheeked Warblers and numerous endemic plants. The property was purchased by the city to preserve the quantity and quality of water entering the Edwards Aquifer, the primary source of drinking water for San Antonio.
Originally part of a Spanish land grant, Rancho Diana changed hands many times during the past 150 years. Non-native, invasive plants were planted on the property, and in more recent times, invasive landscape plants from nearby residential and recreational properties escaped cultivation and found their way onto the property. The result has been displacement of many native plants to exotic invasive plants.
After reviewing topography maps at ranch headquarter to determine where to concentrate their efforts that morning, they climbed into the back of a pick-up truck for a short drive to a problem area containing a “forest” of Nandina domestica, or Heavenly Bamboo.
Despite the presence of native evergreen sumac, greenbrier, ashe juniper and live oak, this area was overrun with hundreds of nandinas of all sizes, from eight-foot tall specimens to clusters of seedlings. Nandina was introduced from eastern Asia and India in the early 1800’s, and it colonizes by spreading underground root sprouts and by animal-dispersed seeds. This plant is a favorite landscape plant due to its bright red berries and red winter foliage. Other invasive plants in this area included chinaberry (Melia azedarach) scarlet firethorn (Pyracantha spp.) and glossy privet (Ligustrum lucidum).
Volunteers crawled on their hands and knees under fallen junipers to cut and spray multi-branched nandinas and pyracanthas. They climbed through thickets of greenbrier to pull nandina seedlings by hand, and girdled or flagged ligustrum and chinaberry trees that were too large to remove with hand tools. Others took photos, noted GPS coordinates, and recorded information regarding the species and number of plants eradicated, the type of disturbance and the abundance. Later they would record this information on the Invaders of Texas invasive plants database.
Good-natured, competitive bantering took place as the team leader tallied the final numbers for the morning. “Did you see the size of that ligustrum I girdled?” “I pulled one hundred nandina seedlings in a two-foot area!” “I can’t believe I found so many chinaberry seedlings under that mother tree!” The esprit de corps was palpable.
When their day was done, the volunteers hiked back to their truck, climbed in and returned to ranch headquarters. The park naturalist thanked the team for their efforts. She emphasized the importance of eliminating these invasives in order to maintain the biodiversity of the property and reminded the team that their efforts were critical to reducing the future supply of seeds.
Today, the park naturalist can point to the cumulative totals resulting from the efforts of volunteers. During the past two years, more than fifty volunteers have eradicated more than 12,000 invasive plants on the Rancho Diana property, representing thirteen different invasive species.
Invasive plant volunteers face a formidable challenge. Invasion of native habitats by invasive plant species is a worldwide problem. In the state of Texas alone, thousands of volunteers and paid employees of city, state and federal agencies are fighting this invasion.
However, each volunteer and employee makes a difference. As Margaret Mead reminded us: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Additional Resources:
www.texasinvasives.org is a website developed for the Invaders of Texas Program, with comprehensive information on invasive species and how to become a citizen scientist
www.beplantwise.org is a website sponsored by the LBJ Wildflower Center, the Garden Club of America and the National Invasive Species Council to reduce invasive plants in the urban landscape
www.wildflower.org is the website for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which includes an invasive to native translator feature to find alternatives to invasive plants
Bringing Nature Home: How you can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants Douglas W. Tallamy
Invasive Plants Sylvan Ramsey Kaufman and Wallace Kaufman
Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants C.Colston Burrell
Weeds of the South Charles T. Bryson and Michael S. DeFelice (editors)
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**ARCHIVED POST AUTHOR: cherylhamilton
