The Invasion of the Florida Everglades Ecosystem by the Brazilian Peppe

The Invasion of the Florida Everglades Ecosystem by the Brazilian Pepper It was as if the class had just stepped let on onto the moon the way the limestone craters pockmarked the areas surface. It looked most uninhabitable indeed Yet, here and there tufts of sawgrass had natively reseeded and sprung up to reclaim the land. Like the American flag hoisted in place by Neil Armstrong on the moon, the tufts of sawgrass seemed to be saying, One small step for sawgrass, one giant leap for the Everglades ecosystem Indeed, to witness the success of the Hole-in-the-Donut Restoration Project is same being the captain of a boat lost at sea catching a break in the fog long enough to glance a beacons light before it becomes shrouded again in the mist of politics, economics and bureaucracy. Yet, that brief glimpse of light is enough to encourage even me, an increasingly cynical and apathetic environmentalist, to trudge on. Before this seemingly barren lunar landscape emerged, the first invas ive exotic species to colonize what would later be called the Hole-in-the-Donut area were a group of Homosapiens sapiens subsp. agricultis , otherwise known as farmers. After the last of the farmers left in the early 1970s, they left behind a rock-plowed, slightly lofty patch of land pregnant with nutrients otherwise not known in the mesic prairie wetlands that originally occupied this space. Thus, the scene was set for one of the most ravaging vegetative invasions seen in the Everglades ecosystem thus far. The army came from Brazil and was crafty enough to get its enemy to use its own resources to advance its invasion. Its weapon clusters of bright rubicund berries that enticed the likes of Florida s state bird the mockingbird, cedar wax... ...con. Bot . 32 p. 354. 6) Morton, JF. 1978. Brazilian pepper, its impact on people, animals, and the environment. Econ. Bot . 32 p. 354. 7) Workman, R, ed. 1978. Schinus Technical proceedings of techniques for control of Schinus in south eastward Florida A workshop for natural area managers. Tech. report. Sanibel (FL) The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Inc. pg. 1. 8) Workman, R, ed. 1978. Schinus Technical proceedings of techniques for control of Schinus in south Florida A workshop for natural area managers. Tech. report. Sanibel (FL) The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Inc. pg. 19. 9) Workman, R, ed. 1978. Schinus Technical proceedings of techniques for control of Schinus in south Florida A workshop for natural area managers. Tech. report. Sanibel (FL) The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Inc. pg. 19.