Attributes
Non-native grasses are classified as invasive if they have the following three attributes:
- The grass must have a pathway to be delivered to a new location, e.g. boat, shoe, animal, vehicle, feed, contaminated seed, etc.
- It is able to tolerate its new environment long enough to establish and reproduce.
- It is able to co-exist with native plants. Invasive grasses can outcompete native plants species by manipulating environmental conditions through either chemicals or other physiological factors.
These factors give an upper hand, which will allow the invader to outcompete the native plants. For example, a study conducted in the Mojave desert of California by Smith et al. in 2006, found that invasive grass species increase in areas with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), especially in arid conditions which make up 20% of Earth’s terrestrial surface area. Therefore, the annual invasive grasses will outcompete the natives because they use CO2 to their advantage.
Read more about this topic: Invasive Grasses Of North America
Famous quotes containing the word attributes:
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“True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)