Spring’s best time to find invasive cogongrass

Cogongrass can completely take over a forested area, smothering out all other vegetation and changing the ecosystem. It’s a widespread problem in several Southern states. But not in Georgia -- yet, says a University of Georgia forestry expert.

From now until early summer, its fluffy, silvery seed heads will wave like flags marking spots in the forest, along roadways or other places in Georgia where cogongrass has taken a hold, said Dave Moorhead, co-director of the Center for Invasive Species & Ecosystem Health on the UGA Tifton, Ga., campus.

“Right now, no other grass in Georgia has that kind of seed head,” he said. “It’s the best time of year to find it and start measures to control it.”

Moorhead, along with 22 public and private partners in the Georgia Cogongrass Task Force, has spearheaded state-wide trainings to help UGA Cooperative Extension agents and county road crews identify cogongrass.

“County road crews out on equipment are more likely to see infestations, especially this time of year,” Moorhead said.

Since arriving as packing material aboard cargo ships landing in Alabama a century ago, the invasive grass has moved throughout that state, Mississippi and Florida, where it covers more than a million acres. But its spread in Georgia has been limited and slow, he said.

The likely reason is that cogongrass was planted as livestock forage for several years in the states that now have problems with it, but not in Georgia. And it’s best to keep it that way, he said.

The grass can grow any place that isn’t permanently wet. It’s even saltwater tolerant. Once it has a foothold in an area, the grass can be very difficult to kill, he said.

“You can’t control it with a single herbicide treatment. You can’t treat once and just walk away,” he said. “It’s an ongoing treatment for many years to eliminate it from an area.”

To date, cogongrass has been identified on 220 sites in 28 Georgia counties. The largest site is 10 acres. “But we know there are more sites out there,” Moorhead said.

To learn more about the grass and how to identify it, go to the Web site cogongrass.org. If you see a suspect site, contact your local UGA Extension office by calling 1-800-ASK- UGA1.

By Brad Haire
University of Georgia


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Prescribed Fire Week, Burn Team Mark Start of Season

Temperatures are dropping but burn season is heating up across the state as a prime time for controlled burning kicks in. And with Prescribed Fire Awareness Week also approaching, the newest recruits to a mobile burn team are ready to go.

This year’s burn crew represents agencies and organizations including The Nature Conservancy, the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

“We just had one of the best fire training sessions ever down at General Coffee,” DNR wildlife biologist Shan Cammack said of recent training at the state park near Douglas.

Sessions involved Student Conservation Association (SCA) members and volunteers from the Conservancy and the Plant Conservation Alliance (GPCA).

“Our SCA crew looks to be amazing and the rest of the class was filled with super-bright GPCA and Conservancy volunteers,” said Cammack, coordinator of the prescribed fire crew for the DNR Wildlife Resources Division’s Nongame Conservation Section.

Prescribed Fire Awareness Week runs from Feb. 1-7, recognizing land managers who protect and maintain the state’s forest resources, and helping those managers and state and federal officials inform state lawmakers and the public about using controlled burns to reduce the risk of wildfires.

Prescribed fire is a safe, natural process that helps insure healthy ecosystems. The practice is considered essential to managing fire-dependant wildlife such as quail, wild turkeys, songbirds and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Controlled burning also is the only known method for perpetuating the longleaf/wiregrass ecosystem, Georgia’s most diverse type of forestland.

Visit the Georgia Prescribed Fire Council Web site at www.garxfire.com to learn more. The council works with the Georgia Forestry Commission and others to promote the exchange of information, techniques and experience regarding prescribed burning.

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More Than 2 Million Acres are now Enrolled in USDA'S Wetlands Reserve Program

Agriculture Under Secretary of Natural Resources and Environment Mark Rey announced October 21, 2008, that landowners have enrolled more than 2 million acres in U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wetlands Reserve Program, a significant contribution toward increasing the Nation's wetlands.

"We have gained wetland acreage, thanks to the stewardship ethic of the Nation's farmers and ranchers," Rey said. "Because of this achievement, USDA was able to help President Bush exceed his goal of improving, restoring, and protecting at least 3 million acres of wetlands in less than five years."

Rey announced the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) milestone at the farm of Charles and Patricia McCain in Albion, Pa., about 25 miles southwest of Erie. The McCains recently enrolled 342 acres, or slightly more than half their farm, into the program. Pennsylvania landowners have enrolled 2,194 acres in WRP since the program was first introduced in 1992.

There is WRP enrolled acreage in each state. New WRP enrollments in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Vermont contributed to this conservation achievement of having more than 2 million acres enrolled in WRP. Enrolled acres for each state are available at: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov.

WRP, administered by USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, was reauthorized in the 2008 Farm Bill. It provides technical and financial assistance to eligible landowners to address wetland, wildlife habitat, soil, water, and related natural resource concerns on private agricultural land. The program provides financial incentives to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property. This voluntary program strives to achieve the greatest wetland functions and values and optimum wildlife habitat on every enrolled acre.

The enrollment options for landowners are permanent easements, 30-year easements, and a restoration cost-share agreement, as well as 30-year contracts on acreage owned by Indian Tribes.

Wetlands are biologically diverse and dynamic ecosystems that support diverse populations of wildlife, plants, and fish. They supply life-sustaining habitat for hundreds of species, including many of the Nation's endangered and threatened species. They provide a protective buffer for our towns and cities against floods and storm surges by absorbing excess water. They also buffer coastal areas from erosion. Often called "nature's sponges," wetlands help protect water quality by filtering out pollutants and offer aesthetic and recreational opportunities.

"The presence of wetlands in the Midwest and South protected private agricultural land in States ravaged by recent flooding from even further damage," Rey said.

Additional information on WRP and other conservation programs is available at www.nrcs.usda.gov/.

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UGA Study Reveals Ecosystem-Level Consequences of Frog Extinctions

In some parts of the tropics, frogs are the most abundant land vertebrates. This peculiar-looking casque-headed tree frog is one of the estimated hundreds of species of tropical frogs.

Photo by Scott Connelly/UGA

Streams that once sang with the croaks, chirps and ribbits of dozens of frog species have gone silent. They’re victims of a fungus that’s decimating amphibian populations worldwide.

Such catastrophic declines have been documented for more than a decade, but until recently scientists knew little about how the loss of frogs alters the larger ecosystem. A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.

“Many things that live in the stream depend on algae as a base food resource,” said lead author Scott Connelly, a doctoral student who will graduate in December from the UGA Odum School of Ecology. “And we found that the system was more productive when the tadpoles were there.”

The results, which appear in the early online edition of the journal Ecosystems, demonstrate how the grazing activities of tadpoles help keep a stream healthy. The researchers found that while the amount of algae in the stream was more than 250 percent greater after the amphibian population decline, the algae were less productive at turning sunlight and nutrients into food for other members of the ecosystem. Without tadpoles swimming along the streambed and stirring up the bottom, the amount of sediment in the stream increased by nearly 150 percent, blocking out sunlight that algae need to grow.

The study is part of a larger effort known as the Tropical Amphibian Declines in Streams (TADS) project, which also involves researchers from Southern Illinois University, Drexel University and the University of Alabama. The project is now in its third round of funding by the National Science Foundation and was initiated by Catherine Pringle (UGA Odum School of Ecology) and Karen Lips (Southern Illinois University) in 2000 through a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) from the NSF. Connelly and Pringle are monitoring in-stream effects of the population decline on algae, while other team members are studying how the loss of frogs impacts other organisms and the transfer of energy between streams and the terrestrial communities that surround them. Preliminary data show that the number of snakes that feed on frogs, for example, has plummeted after the population decline.

“We were there before, during and after the extinction event and were able to look at the ecosystem and measure how it changed,” said Pringle, Distinguished Research Professor in the Odum School and study co-author. “Very rarely have scientists been able to do that with respect to any organism.”

The chytrid fungus responsible for declines has steadily marched southeast across Costa Rica and through much of Panama like a storm front, killing up to 90 percent of frogs in afflicted streams. In 2003, the team set up research sites on two streams in the pristine and lush highlands of Panama. One study site had already suffered a catastrophic amphibian decline, while the other had a healthy population but, based on its location, was directly in the path of the fungal disease.

In the first stage of their research, Connelly and Pringle assessed ecosystem changes that occur when tadpoles are experimentally excluded from small areas of both the healthy stream and the frogless stream. They found that the absence of the tadpoles resulted in more sediment and less productive algae.

In late 2004, frogs in the formerly healthy stream began dying. The team reassessed the stream and found that impact of the frog die-off was even greater than they had predicted in their exclusion studies. “We predicted the direction of the change,” Pringle said, “but underestimated its magnitude.”

The UGA research team is continuing to monitor the health of the streams to get valuable, long-term data. So far the stream has not rebounded. “It’s still sad going back,” Connelly said, to which Pringle added: “Once the frogs die, it’s like an incredible silence descends over the whole area. It’s eerie.”

To date, scientists have not found a way to stop the spread of the fungus in the wild. Broadly applying a fungicide to an entire watershed, Connelly said, would kill beneficial fungi that are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.

But scientists can cure individual frogs in captivity by simply swabbing them with a fungicide. Connelly has worked to protect frogs through Amphibian Ark, a global effort supported by zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums and research institutions that aims to ensure the survival of amphibians by collecting and breeding them. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is one of the key breeding sites.

“The one speck of hope is that if we’re able to collect some of these rare animals, we can cure them,” Connelly said. “As long as we have the money to keep a breeding program going, in the future it might be possible to reintroduce them into the wild.”

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