Invasive Plants
Before this class, I barely knew about invasive species and their direct relation to biodiversity. Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity, thus it was very important to understand how invasive species were affecting California’s plant diversity. In her book, Invasive Plants of California's Wildlands, Carla Bossard argues that “invasive plants invade native habitat areas and vastly alter the ecological landscape by outcompeting and excluding native plants” (10). After completing our visits and analyzing our data, I realized that invasive species were definitely one of the reasons why native plants were not significantly more than non-native. How could this be fixed? It was scary to see a direct correlation between a decline in biodiversity and an increase in invasive species. If native plants were decreasing that just meant the entire ecosystem was being affected, since plants are a vital part of the health of our ecosystem. I soon learned that California’s invasive plant problems were severe and that if we didn’t do something about it soon, the future of California’s biodiversity did not look so bright. This encourages me to do more research and find out how I can help in ensuring our ecosystem is healthy.
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