After reading chapter 7, I felt very ignorant about weeds and what they do. Before the chapter, I had heard of the term “weed” but thought it referred to a specific plant species that was annoying and tough to deal with. The chapter was informative and now I know that a weed is a term that applies to plants that can grow in poor quality soil and reproduce quickly, stealing nutrients and water away from native plants. Living in apartments for almost all of my life, I never had to handle a lawn or a garden which I can attribute partially for my past ignorance of weeds.
Aside from being informative, the chapter did a great job of providing insights on how one change in an ecosystem can influence many other changes. A quote from the chapter that I found to be interesting and significant was when McCully asserted that “… it is the accumulation of such local losses that drive the accelerating number of plant species extinctions across North America” (108). When nonnative plant species were added to Staten Island, many of these nonnative species, such as ailanthus, were aggressive and caused native plant species to eventually disappear. In response to this development, McCully points out that people should not treat this loss as local but rather as a national loss. The disappearance of a plant species will affect all other species, including animals, that rely on that plant, causing a chain of losses that can affect all of North America. According to the NYSDEC, “the decline of 46 percent of imperiled or endangered species in the United States” is a result of invasive species (106). I found the two quotes powerful in showing how people need to consider the national impact of a species rather than believing that a loss’ impact is specific to only to one region.
