Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) was introduced to North America as a culinary herb in the 1860s and it is considered an invasive species in much of North America. As of 2020 [update] it has been documented in most of the Eastern United States and Canada, with scattered populations in the west. [1] It is listed as a noxious or restricted plant in the following states: Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. [2] [3] [1] A current map of its distribution in the United States can be found at the Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System (EDDmapS). [1]
The most promising biological control agent, the monophagous weevil Ceutorhynchus scrobicollis , specifically studied since 2002, has been blocked for introduction into the US repeatedly by the USDA Technical Advisory, TAG, group before being approved in 2017, though regulatory hurdles remain. [4] [5] [6] In Canada, C. scrobicollis was approved for release in 2018 and subsequently established in several sites across Ontario. [7] [8]
Like most invasive plants, once garlic mustard is introduced into a new location, it persists and spreads into undisturbed plant communities. In many areas of its introduction in Eastern North America, it has become the dominant under-story species in woodland and flood plain environments, where eradication is difficult. [9]
The insects and fungi that feed on it in its native habitat are not present in North America, increasing its seed productivity and allowing it to out-compete native plants. It is also toxic to some native insects, such as North American butterflies in the genus Pieris such as Pieris virginiensis and Pieris oleracea . [10] [11]
Garlic mustard produces allelochemicals, mainly in the form of the compounds allyl isothiocyanate and benzyl isothiocyanate, [12] which suppress mycorrhizal fungi that most plants, including native forest trees, require for optimum growth. [13] However, allelochemicals produced by garlic mustard do not affect mycorrhizal fungi from garlic mustard's native range, indicating that this "novel weapon" in the invaded range explains garlic mustard's success in North America. [14] Additionally, because white-tailed deer rarely feed on garlic mustard, large deer populations may help to increase its population densities by consuming competing native plants. Trampling by browsing deer encourages additional seed growth by disturbing the soil. Seeds contained in the soil can germinate up to five years after being produced (and possibly more). [15] The persistence of the seed bank and suppression of mycorrhizal fungi both complicate restoration of invaded areas because long-term removal is required to deplete the seed bank and allow recovery of mycorrhizae. [16]
Garlic mustard produces a variety of secondary compounds including flavonoids, defense proteins, glycosides, and glucosinolates that reduce its palatability to herbivores. [17] [18] [19] In northeastern forests, garlic mustard rosettes increase the rate of native leaf litter decomposition, increasing nutrient availability and possibly creating conditions favorable to garlic mustard's own spread. [20]
Preventing seed production and depletion of the soil seed bank are key to eradicating infestations, but seeds can last as long as twelve years and just one plant can produce thousands of seeds. [21] Seeds are also easily tracked around by animals, vehicles, and people. Non-chemical non-biological control methods include removal by hand-pulling or cutting at the base, mowing, burning, or manipulation of the environment to reduce light.
Pulling is more effective if the entire root is removed and desirable plants and soils are not trampled and compacted. [21] Garlic mustard can invade stable forests as well as disturbed sites. It can grow in deep shade as well as full sunlight and in a wide range of moisture levels. Therefore, management by planting or encouraging other plants to intercept light will not prevent new infestations, although it may slow them. Control is best in early spring prior to flowering because the plants are smaller which reduces soil disturbance and loss from pulling, as well as giving competing plants more of the season to expand. However, it is easy to miss the small plants, which can flower even when less than three inches in above-ground height. [21] The flowers increase visibility, especially in lower light situations. Some plants' roots will also break off, even with careful pulling technique, leaving pieces in the soil that will regrow. Root breakage is most common in soil compacted by foot traffic and in drier conditions. Mowing and cutting are also more effective prior to the plants flowering because the mowed and cut plant pieces are less likely to possess enough energy to bloom and generate viable seed. Removed plants should be bagged (and disposed of correctly) or burned, as seeds or roots may survive composting. Pulled plants can bloom and produce seed, particularly if the roots are attached, even while the plants are withering and dying. [22]
Chemical control may be achieved to some extent by foliar application with a number of herbicides, although their use is much more efficacious in highly disturbed situations, like agricultural monocultures or urban and suburban gardens, than in complex settings, like forests and well-established meadows or prairies. Timing herbicide applications to the earliest spring may help to better protect native or desirable plants in the same locations as garlic mustard is generally active earlier than most other plants in northern temperate climates, one of the reasons it can generally outcompete native plants and displace them. [23] However, there are native and desirable plants that are active even before garlic mustard is, and/or at the same time in early spring, such as flowers from the genera Pulsatilla and Helleborus of the family Ranunculaceae. Some native and desirable plants also are evergreen and thus vulnerable to foliar and post-emergent herbicides at all times. [23] Chemical control methods that involve heavy equipment or human trampling can compact soils, affecting all plants negatively. Such methods can disturb wildlife and chemical solutions may cause chemical pollution such as tainted water through runoff.
All non-biological methods of control must be repeated for 2–5 years to be effective—as most infestations occur in sites where a considerable seed bank has been established. [24] Seeds continue to germinate for over a decade. Surviving roots regrow and produce new seed pods, enabling the infestation to potentially be quickly reestablished. Continual reintroduction of garlic mustard to areas where it has been eradicated is also highly likely until an effective biological control situation is established, as the long-lived seeds are produced in great quantities and are readily distributed by animals and human activity. [22]
Accurately targeted biological control is the method of control that is the least-damaging to ecosystems not typified by monoculture, like forested areas, while also being the most efficient in terms of costs. [25] [22] [26] For the management of some invasive plants, or in some cases when dealing with garlic mustard, herbicide application and human-managed labor such as mowing, tilling, burning, and pulling may be preferred for managing unwanted vegetation on land that is highly disturbed by human activity, such as agricultural land. This effort is usually rendered more effective by the supplemental presence of biological control agents. For more complex ecosystems such as forests, trampling and other physical disturbance such as soil compaction, the spreading of seeds from clothing, chemical toxicity, unwanted non-targeted species damage, demanding human labor, petrochemical consumption, and other factors are eliminated or greatly reduced with effective biological control. [22] One species of weevil that targets garlic mustard, for instance, consumes the seeds. [27] Unlike with some invasive plants which are annuals, such as Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stiltgrass), the mowing of garlic mustard is less effective because it regrows from its tap root, especially if it is mowed in its second, flowering, year — where the root has grown enough to store considerable energy.
Monophagous controllers, such as the weevil Ceutorhynchus scrobicollis , which only feeds on garlic mustard, are usually the most ideal candidates for initial introduction to combat invasive plants, as they greatly reduce the chance that the introduced controller will itself become a pest. [28] Difficulties involved in using biological control are identifying species that are safe to introduce as well as relying on fewer controlling species being present in the non-native ecosystem. Up to 76 things feed on garlic mustard in its native environment. By contrast, nothing eats it to a significant extent in the United States where it is non-native. [29] Despite there being so many controlling agents for that plant, it is currently estimated that adequate control of garlic mustard's invasiveness in portions of the United States where it is problematic can be achieved by the introduction of just two weevils, with C. scrobicollis being the most important of the two. [30]
The example of garlic mustard shows how effective, at least in Minnesota's controlled trials and European field observations, even one monophagous biological control agent can be, while having the fewest costs. [31] Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of C. scrobicollis and, potentially, C. constrictus, the importation and release of biological control agents such as those may be stymied by heavy research and regulation requirements. [30] Those who believe the regulations are well-crafted argue they are needed to prevent the agents from becoming highly undesirable pests while critics argue that the regulations, as currently written and implemented, make it too difficult to bypass more damaging, less effective, and more costly methods of control — such as applying herbicides in forests. [32] As of 2023, there is no legally-approved biological control agent to combat garlic mustard in the United States. Garlic mustard has been researched by the United States since the 1990s and C. scrobicollis has been studied specifically since 2002. [24]
Of the 76 natural enemies garlic mustard has in its native range, several have been tested for use as potential biological control agents. Five weevil species from the genus Ceutorhynchus and one flea beetle were selected as candidates during preliminary testing. Since that time, the United States' employees studying these candidates narrowed the list. The monophagous weevil C. scrobicollis, studied since 2002, was officially recommended for introduction into the US in 2012 but TAG (Technical Advisory Group for Biological Control of Weeds) blocked its introduction, requesting further research be conducted. [24] It was also petitioned by another researcher in 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2016. Additional research requested by TAG in response to the 2008 petition was completed. [5] [4] In 2017, approval was finally granted by TAG and a decision letter from APHIS was received a month later. In 2023, another hurdle was passed with the completion of a Biological Assessment to F&WS. [6]
In Canada, a petition to release C. scrobicollis was approved in 2018. Several sites in Ontario were selected and the weevils were released later that year. [7] [33] Follow-up assessments in 2022 showed initial signs of establishment at release sites. [8]
Brassicaceae or Cruciferae is a medium-sized and economically important family of flowering plants commonly known as the mustards, the crucifers, or the cabbage family. Most are herbaceous plants, while some are shrubs. The leaves are simple, lack stipules, and appear alternately on stems or in rosettes. The inflorescences are terminal and lack bracts. The flowers have four free sepals, four free alternating petals, two shorter free stamens and four longer free stamens. The fruit has seeds in rows, divided by a thin wall.
The green-veined white is a butterfly of the family Pieridae.
Alliaria petiolata, or garlic mustard, is a biennial flowering plant in the mustard family (Brassicaceae). It is native to Europe, western and central Asia, north-western Africa, Morocco, Iberia and the British Isles, north to northern Scandinavia, and east to northern Pakistan and Xinjiang in western China.
Onopordum acanthium is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to Europe and Western Asia from the Iberian Peninsula east to Kazakhstan, and north to central Scandinavia, and widely naturalised elsewhere, with especially large populations present in the United States and Australia. It is a vigorous biennial plant with coarse, spiny leaves and conspicuous spiny-winged stems.
Allelopathy is a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and can have beneficial or detrimental effects on the target organisms and the community. Allelopathy is often used narrowly to describe chemically-mediated competition between plants; however, it is sometimes defined more broadly as chemically-mediated competition between any type of organisms. The original concept developed by Hans Molisch in 1937 seemed focused only on interactions between plants, between microorganisms and between microorganisms and plants. Allelochemicals are a subset of secondary metabolites, which are not directly required for metabolism of the allelopathic organism.
Pieris, the whites or garden whites, is a widespread now almost cosmopolitan genus of butterflies of the family Pieridae. The highest species diversity is in the Palearctic, with a higher diversity in Europe and eastern North America than the similar and closely related Pontia. The females of many Pieris butterflies are UV reflecting, while the male wings are strongly UV absorbing due to pigments in the scales.
Pieris oleracea, or more commonly known as the mustard white, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae native to a large part of Canada and the northeastern United States. The nearly all-white butterfly is often found in wooded areas or open plains. There are two seasonal forms, which make it distinct from other similar species. Because of climate change, populations are moving further north.
Centaurea diffusa, also known as diffuse knapweed, white knapweed or tumble knapweed, is a member of the genus Centaurea in the family Asteraceae. This species is common throughout western North America but is not actually native to the North American continent, but to the eastern Mediterranean.
Pieris virginiensis, the West Virginia white, is a butterfly found in North America in the Great Lakes states, along the Appalachians from New England to Alabama, and in southern Ontario. They are typically found in moist deciduous forests. Forestry, development, and a highly-invasive species that it confuses with its host plant (Cardamine) are causing this species to decline.
Cirsium arvense is a perennial species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native throughout Europe and western Asia, northern Africa and widely introduced elsewhere. The standard English name in its native area is creeping thistle. It is also commonly known as Canada thistle and field thistle.
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Erysiphe cruciferarum is a plant pathogen of the family Erysiphaceae, which causes the main powdery mildew of crucifers, including on Brassica crops, such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. E. cruciferarum is distributed worldwide, and is of particular concentration in continental Europe and the Indian subcontinent. E. cruciferarum is an ascomycete fungus that has both sexual and asexual stages. It is also an obligate parasite that appears to have host specificity; for example, isolates from turnip will not infect Brussels sprout, and vice versa. While being a part of the family Erysiphaceae, it belongs to those members in which the conidia are formed singly and whose haustoria are multilobed.
The evolution of increased competitive ability (EICA) hypothesis was first proposed by Bernd Blossey and Rolf Nötzold in 1995 as a way to explain the success of invasive, non-indigenous species. Observing that:
Vincetoxicum nigrum, a species in the family Apocynaceae, also known as black swallow-wort, Louise's swallow-wort, or black dog-strangling vine, is a species of plant that is native to Europe and is found primarily in Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain. It is an invasive plant species in the northeastern United States, parts of the Midwest, southeastern Canada, and California. In 2020, wild plants were found in Timaru, New Zealand.
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Kudzu is an invasive plant species in the United States, introduced from Asia with devastating environmental consequences, earning it the nickname "the vine that ate the South". It has been spreading rapidly in the Southern United States, "easily outpacing the use of herbicide, spraying, and mowing, as well increasing the costs of these controls by $6 million annually". Estimates of the vine's spread vary, from the United States Forest Service's 2015 estimate of 2,500 acres per year to the Department of Agriculture's estimate of as much as 150,000 acres annually.
Borodinia perstellata, commonly known as Braun's rockcress and Nevada rockcress, is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family. It is native to Kentucky and Tennessee, where it is known from perhaps 25 total populations. Most of the occurrences have few individuals, and all are deteriorating in quality. The plant grows in shady forest habitat on limestone substrates, usually near streams or rivers. This is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.
Linaria dalmatica is a herbaceous, short-lived perennial plant native to western Asia and southeastern Europe that has become a weed in other areas. The family this plant now belongs to is the Plantaginaceae Family. Previously, it belonged to the Scrophulariaceae (Figwort) family. Its common names include Balkan toadflax, broadleaf toadflax, and Dalmatian toadflax. Linaria dalmatica has unique yellow flowers with an orange center that draw individuals to purchase them to display in their gardens. The distribution of L. dalmatica to North America can be attributed to use as a fabric dye, folk remedies and as an ornamental plant. However, it is now classified as a weed in both Canada and the U.S.A.
Dipsacus laciniatus is a species of flowering plant in the honeysuckle family known by the common name cutleaf teasel. It is native to Europe and Asia. It is present in North America as an introduced species and invasive weed.
Privets are any of a number of shrubs or trees in the genus Ligustrum, many of which are invasive. The genus contains about 50 species native to the Old World and Australasia. Many members of the genus are grown as ornamental plants in parts of the world.