#plant extinction

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

Japanese knotweed. Purple loosestrife. Kudzu. Mesquite. Giant hogweed. Bitou bush. What do these plants have in common? Easy: They’re among the most “invasive” plant species on the planet. When humans bring these highly adaptable, fast-growing plants to new ecosystems, whether it’s on purpose or by accident, native species often get squeezed out and pushed toward extinction.

But, unlike predators such as rats and cats — which have threatened animal species and caused extinctions around the globe — have displaced plants like kudzu ever actually driven another plant species extinct? The authors of a 2016 paper published in the journal AoB Plants couldn’t document any confirmed cases.

Not yet, anyway. But that’s only because globalization is a relatively recent phenomenon.

“The main reason why there is no clear evidence of extinction that can be exclusively attributed to plant invasions is that invasions have not been around long enough,” co-author Dave Richardson of the Centre for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, said in a prepared release. “Our research shows that plant extinction is an agonizingly slow process. However, red flags are evident in numerous locations around the world — species that now exist in fragmented populations, with radically reduced opportunities to reproduce.”

Richardson and co-author Paul Downey from the University of Canberra looked at these “red flags” and came up with a six-point “extinction trajectory” for native plant species facing threats from displaced vegetation:

Plants die more quickly than they can be replaced by their offspring in some locations.

Plants disappear from some locations entirely, but potential offspring remain as “propagules,” seeds or spores that could regenerate a new cohort of individuals.

Some locations lose both individual plants and their propagules. With no plants or seeds, this is a local extinction.

The last locations hosting a species lose their individual plants, but in some places seeds or spores remain in the soil.

The species is entirely lost in the wild, with no individuals or propagules. The only survivors are held in botanic collections.

The remaining plants are lost, and the remaining seeds or spores are no longer capable of becoming new plants.

Downey said that this research suggests we need to start managing threatened plants much earlier than we currently do.

[therewillbenomoreafterme]

St. Helena Olive

Nesiota elliptica

Native to the cloud forests of St. Helena Island, it was the only member of its genus. Its extinction was caused by deforestation and grazing by nonnative species.

The flowers were thought to be pollinated by a native hoverfly species, which survives to this day. 

When only one wild tree remained, conservationists attempted to revive the species--but only a single cutting survived. The last wild tree died in 1994 and seedlings from the cutting survived in human care until 2003. Termites and a fungal infection caused the death of the last St. Helena Olive.

A sample of the tree’s DNA is kept in the Kew Gardens DNA bank.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

That's so cool! And they found a few of them, and they're now growing seedlings in greenhouses for eventual replanting!

Quercus tardifolia is a relic species leftover from when the climate was much cooler and wetter in the past, and can only really live in a few high-elevation spots in Texas. It's definitely still at risk of extinction due to increasing heat and drought caused by climate change, but the discovery means this species still has a chance.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 329

Bruce was admittedly suspicious when Talia requests a meeting, and is admittedly still upset with the entire hiding Damian’s existence from him for literal years. But he also admits that he just… has to take a moment. 

“Run that by me again please?” He had to have misheard, right? Or gotten drugged by something maybe. 

Talia sighs, sounding just as tired as he felt. “Father’s tea supplier has moved to Gotham after an argument, and he wishes to discuss the agreement of him not entering the city- to speak with said vendor.” 

[mindblowingscience]

A rare species of tree cactus has gone extinct in Florida, in what is believed to be the first species lost to sea level rise in the United States, researchers said Tuesday. The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) was restricted to a single small population in the Florida Keys, an archipelago off the southern tip of the state, first discovered in 1992 and monitored intermittently since then. But salt water intrusion caused by rising seas, soil erosion from storms and high tides, and herbivory by mammals placed significant pressure on the last population.

Continue Reading.

[muffinlance]

druk gets into zukos coffee supply

"Uncle."

Uncle raised his tea cup to his lips.

"Uncle, how did he get in."

Uncle took the most delicate of sips.

"Uncle I am not turning another storeroom into tea storage."

"How unfortunate to waste the space," said Uncle. "After all, it is quite hard to keep a dragon out once they have acquired the taste!"

"Uncle."

[housecow]

the problem with me working around fossils is that when i see a mollusk my first thought isn’t “wow how did this thing live” but “holy shit that would’ve been delicious”

[shadowxamyweek]

Sonic Garden

(This has been brewing for ages in my brain and I'm actually really excited to try and get this event going. Thank you @nodulemodule for actually coming up with the name!)

This June, in celebration of our favorite Blue Blur who himself loves to slow down and smell the wildflowers every now and again, I would like to propose the Sonic Garden. The goal of Sonic Garden is to, through a united affection for the Sonic story and characters, share information about plants! Any type of plants! All types of plants! And all types of information too! If you wish to infodump about the edible, medicinal, magical, and/or symbolic background of a plant, feel free!

And you can participate in any way you wish! If you want to use a photo and some figures/props/digitally edited in aspects, sure! If you want to draw the entire thing, go for it! If you would rather just write a short piece, feel free!

For example:

Sonic and dandelions! Did you know that Dandelions can be found all over the globe? The only place they don't seem to like is Antarctica.

I guess if Sonic wants to enjoy a dandelion salad as he watches glaciers float by full of peckys and rockys, he's just going to have to bring his own.

(If you are going to use a picture of the plant, make sure there are no people in frame and nothing that would endanger or expose anyone involved! Your privacy is valuable!)

Remember to use the tag #SonicGarden when sharing! That way, we can all find it!

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Archaeopteris 🤝Humans

Single Handedly Causing a Mass Extinction with Rapid Climate Change, *mostly* by accident

(the mostly is for humans, who eventually started realizing what we were doing and yet have continued doing the thing, rendering it On Purpose)

(I am assuming Archaeopteris never realized what they were doing but I guess I could be wrong)

[he-who-needs-to-be-silenced]

Euramerica submission 1

These two goobers are for the rhodophyte forest

If you wanna participate you can check my account you’ll probably find the post if you scroll a bit

Or you could join the discord here:

[warandpeas]

Get Along

Collab with BBC Earth, Rewriting Extinction in association with Moondance Foundation Ever felt… out of place? 🤨 Some trees feel the same way! Let’s plant native trees where they belong, so they can grow up to be strong, carbon-storing forests that work in perfect synergy! 🌳 Learn more about #OurGreenPlanet with BBC Earth and Rewriting Extinction. Watch the animated version by Cut the Mustard here.

[son1c]

Moths or butterflies, which is better. What's your stance on the topic that plagued my elementary school for 3 years it got to the point where they had to hold a school wide vote to shut up us students

i think they're girlfriends and should kiss

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This ties into one of the big conundrums of restoration ecology. When trying to decide what plants to add to a restoration site, should we add those that are there now, even if some of those species are increasingly stressed by the effects of climate change? Or do we start importing native species in adjacent ecoregions that are more tolerant of heat?

Animals can migrate relatively quickly, but plants take longer to expand their range, and the animals that they have mutual relationships with may be moving to cooler areas faster than the plants can follow. Whether the animals will be able to survive in their new range without their plant partners is another question, and that is an argument in favor of trying to help the plants keep up with them. We're not just having to think about what effects climate change will have next summer, but also predict what it's going to look like here in fifty years, a hundred, or beyond. It's an especially important question in regards to slow-growing trees which may not reproduce until they are several years old, and which can take decades to really be a significant support of their local ecosystem.

For example, here in the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades, western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is experiencing increased die-off due to longer, hotter summer droughts. Do we continue to plant western red cedar, in the hopes that some of them may display greater tolerance to drought and heat? Or do we instead plant Port Orford cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), which is found in red cedar's southern range, and which may be more drought-tolerant, even though it's not found this far north yet?

Planting something from an adjacent ecoregion isn't the same as grabbing a plant from halfway around the world and establishing it as an invasive species. But there is the question as to whether the established native would have been able to survive if we hadn't introduced a competing "neighbor" species. Would the Port Orford cedars and western red cedars be able to coexist as they do in northern California and southern Oregon, or would the introduced Port Orfords be enough to push the already stressed red cedars over the edge to extirpation?

There's no simple answer. But I am glad to see the government at least allowing some leeway for those ecologists who are desperately trying any tactic they can to save rare species from extinction.

[happybird16]

Imagine flirtingly asking Senku how difficult it'd be to make contraceptives in the stone world only to be met with a long rant + diagram about sheep intestines and Queen Ann's Lace

[xspiderfanx]

in the first Jurassic Park movie, Dr. Ellie Sattler notices a plant on the island that was extinct (since the cretaceous period). the movie explained how they brought back dinosaurs from blood in mosquitoes that got fossilized in amber, but they never explained how they brought back an extinct plant. HOW TF DID THEY BRING BACK THE EXTINCT PLANTS IN JURASSIC PARK?

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 38: Pre-History Continued

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.