Here's a tale of how nature triumphs in the end.
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@ClimateJenny I've watched so many species disappear around me and many more will but it's invisible to almost everyone as Leopold says in his famous quotation. Although it doesn't make up for it I'm up to over 40 native species in my little gardens, leaving leaves on the ground and most plants standing until spring in hopes the insects they need will be able to live too.
I've seen too many woodland plants in parks especially wild orchids disappear leaving holes behind where they were dug.
@ClimateJenny The only plants I ever dug were from a woodland where the bulldozers were parked waiting to obliterate it the next day.
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@ClimateJenny I've watched so many species disappear around me and many more will but it's invisible to almost everyone as Leopold says in his famous quotation. Although it doesn't make up for it I'm up to over 40 native species in my little gardens, leaving leaves on the ground and most plants standing until spring in hopes the insects they need will be able to live too.
I've seen too many woodland plants in parks especially wild orchids disappear leaving holes behind where they were dug.
@nancywisser Ugh, I hate that. I have a friend, a park volunteer, who leads nature walks in the spring to see the spring ephemerals. She’s found holes too.
I’ve also given over my garden to native plants, including a few rescues. It feels like walking a tightrope to get a balance: On one hand, there is a tiny corner of really nice intact habitat that I want to nurture, while on the other hand there’s the clear-cut suburban lawn that needs major restoration work ASAP.
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TL;DR people concerned about invasive species and advocating for some action are more aware than most about how unattainable some vision of "pristine nature" is. #IAS #biodiversity #anthropocene
@cbuddenhagen
This might be another example of viewing ecosystems as being there to serve our needs, but letting invasive herbivores ravage our forests in Aotearoa has a huge impact on the plants ability to store carbon. Instead it is rereleased as carbon dioxide and methane as the animals metabolise the plants they eat
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/125475191/culling-deer-possums-and-other-pests-could-undo-15-per-cent-of-our-annual-climate-impact--forest-and-bird
@quoidian @johncarlosbaez -
@nancywisser @johncarlosbaez @arisummerland Not a fool’s errand! Every plant you can save holds the possibility of being the one who can re-emerge later when conditions are right. All biodiversity is precious, and we can’t predict which species is going to be crucial later on.
What’s worse is that we don’t have, and probably never will have, the tools to replicate intact ecosystems. The plants are very clever, but our so-called civilization is a bad neighbor. Keep conserving. #NativePlants
@ClimateJenny @nancywisser @johncarlosbaez
SO true about native plants.
I watch the cycles in my own plantings and it's amazing how a plant will seem to disappear for a year or two, and then it'll reappear and have a banner year.
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Ecologist Alison Anastasio visited a former US Steel South Works site in Chicago. She expected to find “all crap plants” — common invasive weeds. To her surprise she spotted little bluestem and three species of native milkweed. She already knew she didn't want a career as an academic scientist. But she came up with the idea of forming a group to study this ecosystem: “a dream team of people I wanted to work with.”
She knew Laura Merwin from the University of Chicago, and later she met Lauren Umek, a project manager for the Chicago Park District. She invited them to brunch to pitch her idea to research plants growing on slag. Not for any obvious career goal. Just from sheer curiosity.
Merwin and Umek were excited to join her project - which she called a “reverse side hustle,” since it involved a lot of work, but didn't make any money: it actually costs money.
And thus the Slag Queens were born.
Their first paper, “Urban post-industrial landscapes have unrealized ecological potential,” was published in Restoration Ecology in 2022. It argues that slag fields don't need to be fixed. They have ecological value in and of themselves. And land managers should forget whatever ecosystem was there before. Instead, they should look to more exotic ecosystems as a guide, like the dolomite prairies of Illinois, where magnesium-rich rock near the surface makes it hard for ordinary plants to thrive. Slag too is rich in magnesium.
The Slag Queens are continuing their revolutionary work even now! For more, start here:
• Carrie Gous, The beauty of slag, https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/beauty-slag
Some of what I just wrote is a paraphrase of this article.
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I actually wept for the prairie grass- good tears. Nature will heal. Extraordinary article. Thank you
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Here's a tale of how nature triumphs in the end.
Steel mills dumped molten slag in parts of Chicago and nearby areas. The slag hardened in layers up to 5 meters deep. These places became barren wastelands. Other industries dumped hot ash and cinders there.
But eventually the steel mills closed.
The deep layers of hard, toxic material were not friendly to plants. Cottonwoods are usually 30 meters tall or more. In the slag fields, stunted cottonwoods grow to just 2 meters.
But rare species that could handle these conditions began to thrive. The lakeside daisy, a federally threatened species lost to Illinois for decades, turned out to grow taller on slag than on topsoil! The capitate spike-rush, last recorded in Illinois in 1894 and considered locally extinct, was rediscovered growing on slag.
And more! Native prairie grasses like little bluestem. Native milkweeds. Even tiny white orchids called sphinx ladies' tresses.
A team of women ecologists began studying these unusual landscapes. They call themselves the Slag Queens.
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@johncarlosbaez In a similar story from across the pond, slag heaps in South Wales were found to be harbouring some endangered species and are proving to be ecologically quite important! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3vj7zld8qo
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Ecologist Alison Anastasio visited a former US Steel South Works site in Chicago. She expected to find “all crap plants” — common invasive weeds. To her surprise she spotted little bluestem and three species of native milkweed. She already knew she didn't want a career as an academic scientist. But she came up with the idea of forming a group to study this ecosystem: “a dream team of people I wanted to work with.”
She knew Laura Merwin from the University of Chicago, and later she met Lauren Umek, a project manager for the Chicago Park District. She invited them to brunch to pitch her idea to research plants growing on slag. Not for any obvious career goal. Just from sheer curiosity.
Merwin and Umek were excited to join her project - which she called a “reverse side hustle,” since it involved a lot of work, but didn't make any money: it actually costs money.
And thus the Slag Queens were born.
Their first paper, “Urban post-industrial landscapes have unrealized ecological potential,” was published in Restoration Ecology in 2022. It argues that slag fields don't need to be fixed. They have ecological value in and of themselves. And land managers should forget whatever ecosystem was there before. Instead, they should look to more exotic ecosystems as a guide, like the dolomite prairies of Illinois, where magnesium-rich rock near the surface makes it hard for ordinary plants to thrive. Slag too is rich in magnesium.
The Slag Queens are continuing their revolutionary work even now! For more, start here:
• Carrie Gous, The beauty of slag, https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/beauty-slag
Some of what I just wrote is a paraphrase of this article.
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@johncarlosbaez this is fascinating and amazing. Thank you for posting and for the link to the article.
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@johncarlosbaez this is fascinating and amazing. Thank you for posting and for the link to the article.
@cetan - thanks! Yes, it's amazing how these species are showing up in slag fields!
https://www.chicagobotanic.org/blog/plant-science-conservation/wasteland-garden
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@johncarlosbaez In a similar story from across the pond, slag heaps in South Wales were found to be harbouring some endangered species and are proving to be ecologically quite important! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3vj7zld8qo
@babe - nice! Thanks!
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Ecologist Alison Anastasio visited a former US Steel South Works site in Chicago. She expected to find “all crap plants” — common invasive weeds. To her surprise she spotted little bluestem and three species of native milkweed. She already knew she didn't want a career as an academic scientist. But she came up with the idea of forming a group to study this ecosystem: “a dream team of people I wanted to work with.”
She knew Laura Merwin from the University of Chicago, and later she met Lauren Umek, a project manager for the Chicago Park District. She invited them to brunch to pitch her idea to research plants growing on slag. Not for any obvious career goal. Just from sheer curiosity.
Merwin and Umek were excited to join her project - which she called a “reverse side hustle,” since it involved a lot of work, but didn't make any money: it actually costs money.
And thus the Slag Queens were born.
Their first paper, “Urban post-industrial landscapes have unrealized ecological potential,” was published in Restoration Ecology in 2022. It argues that slag fields don't need to be fixed. They have ecological value in and of themselves. And land managers should forget whatever ecosystem was there before. Instead, they should look to more exotic ecosystems as a guide, like the dolomite prairies of Illinois, where magnesium-rich rock near the surface makes it hard for ordinary plants to thrive. Slag too is rich in magnesium.
The Slag Queens are continuing their revolutionary work even now! For more, start here:
• Carrie Gous, The beauty of slag, https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/beauty-slag
Some of what I just wrote is a paraphrase of this article.
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@johncarlosbaez "Slag Queens," lol awesome name. Nature finds a way. Once, this entire planet was slag, in a way.
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