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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2023
- Title: Investigating the impacts of Japanese Knotweed on Black Elderberry
- Author: Anagali Malloy Duncan (Brown University)
- Abstract:
The colonization of the United States has profoundly affected its plants and ecosystems, leading to significant impacts on native plant species. With the arrival of European settlers, vast areas of land were transformed through deforestation, habitat alteration, and the introduction of non-native species. Our work with the Nipmuc people, the Indigenous tribe whose territory stretches throughout western and central Massachusetts, and south to Connecticut, has made it clear that two introduced species are among most pervasive and detrimental on the land they steward. One of these species is Fallopia japonica (Japanese knotweed). In our research project, we aim to investigate the impacts of planting a culturally important native plant species, Black Elderberry (Sambucus nigra), in an area of tribal land where introduced species have recently been manually removed. We set up 5 pairs of meter-square plots, half with an Elderberry sapling planted in the middle of the plot and half acting as a control with no Elderberry sapling. We then analyzed how knotweed and other plants returned in these plots. We discovered that the growing patterns of the introduced species were different based on both Elderberry presence and potentially the position of the plots relative to other environmental factors (e.g., a stream and tree). Additionally, Japanese knotweed tended to grow more frequently and taller in the Elderberry plots, contrary to our initial hypotheses. We believe that the relationship between the Japanese knotweed and the Black Elderberry are deeply dependent on one another, with the Japanese knotweed using its resources to try and choke out the Elderberry with increased foliage. By qualitatively comparing this study area to a plot with previously established three year old Elderberry plants nearby, we see that less knotweed was sprouting and we hypothesize that is because the competition for sunlight is eventually won by the larger elderberry.
- Research Category: Invasive Plants, Pests & Pathogens; Historical and Retrospective Studies; Environmental Justice; Ecological Informatics and Modelling; Conservation and Management; Biodiversity Studies
