Swimming Elephants, Overlooked Calla Lilies and Lurking Lanternflies Compel Warwickian
Soňa Mason pursues native plant proliferation, fired up by education and experience.
Soňa Mason, of Warwick, grew up in South Africa, where she was intrigued with world wildlife cards that abounded there like American baseball cards in the U.S., she recalled recently, when asked how she became an advocate for native wildlife.
“I wanted to go to those places,” she said, noting the allure of lemurs in Madagascar and the Okavango River Delta in Botswana, where she would eventually go and see elephants swimming under water, their trunks held above them like periscopes. With all the dramatic African flora and fauna, she couldn’t understand the South African preoccupation with European flowers.
“"I wondered why South Africans valued European plants more highly than their own, when Cape Town is based in one of the six plant biodiversity hotspots of the world, known as the Cape Floristic Region. South Africa exports flowers including the calla lily, protea, watsonia and agapanthus," also known as the Nile lily.
She took a job promoting ecotourism travel ventures. Then Mason came to the U.S. and pursued her interests in the academic world, ultimately getting a master’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology at Rutgers after doing her undergraduate work at Columbia, “studying how organisms interact with the environment.” Now she works doing native restoration projects and also volunteers on the board of the Wildwood Restoration Project, focused on replacing invasive plants with native ones.
“Native plants in yards help birds and insects,” she said, as they evolved together and depend on each other.
To feed birds and the insects they depend on, she recommends planting any local, appropriate native plant, including species such as Pentstemon, Monarda, Coreopsis, and others. If invasive plants prove too difficult to pull out with all roots intact, she cuts the main stems and paints the cut end with a little herbicide to prevent regrowth.
Mason expanded on her perspective in her responses to Lookout questions:
- What motivated you to focus on supporting native wildlife?
We're spoiled for choice among myriad fascinating life forms in every nook and cranny. I was fortunate to visit some of the wildest places as a young travel agent, and it became apparent that they were not going to survive long due to human encroachment, unless conservation measures were put in place.
- What is your particular focus now, and how are you pursuing it?
Right now, my focus is on land restoration: Removing invasive plant species and replacing them with natives. I love the outdoor physicality of the work, after many years behind a desk. It's very gratifying to see habitat develop out of a former ravaged site, and to witness more species being attracted to a place they can live in.
- What development in the world of plants, animals and invasive species are you seeing now that you feel is most important and least understood that needs to be addressed in some way?
As regards invasive species - perhaps early action on newly emerging invasives is needed most and not noticed by the public, or not taken seriously until it's too late.
For example, the spotted lanternfly has recently spread in Warwick to where they have been flying into people's faces and hair while out on a walk in some areas, and that is the least of it.
If the species has spread this much, it means it's moving on from its preferred host plant, the Ailanthus altissima or tree of heaven (another invasive species), and onto local orchards and vineyards. The sheer numbers of the insect will be hard to eradicate by then, as they lay cryptic egg masses which look like a brown smear of mud on a brown tree trunk, and even on the underside of vehicles, which can spread them very far and fast.
Most people don't think a few specimens are a problem, if they notice them at all. When the population quickly becomes massive and destructive and interacts with the public, then it can be just about too late, or a heavy financial and logistical burden to manage.
- To what extent are plants and animals evolving to adapt, and what problems are surfacing with shortfalls in adaptation?
Gosh, that's a bigger question than I can respond to with any accuracy. Probably best sought from research stations like Cary Institute of Ecological studies, Hudsonia, etc.
I'm not sure about the extent of adaptation. From my view it appears that generalist (or common) species, ones which aren't too shy of human presence and perhaps don't need pristine habitat are able to adapt somewhat, while sensitive species are hit the hardest as their needs are not met. As regards invasive plants, they seem to affect diverse insect populations the most, as these have co-evolved with our native plants and depend on them for food. Likewise, most songbird populations depend on insect protein to feed and grow their young. Both insect and bird populations have taken massive dives in the past decade or so. Many rare plant species are also losing ground to deer overbrowsing, land development and competition from invasive plants.
- Where is this trend heading without intervention?
I tend to point people to a heavily invaded spot, such as near some major road interchanges, where a kind of lumpy and tangled landscape has emerged, where the invasives have killed off the trees and native shrubs and created an impenetrable jungle of thorns and vines. The ultimate result here in the northeast, for instance, would be a low-functional ecosystem of a few species of plants that have no predators to keep their growth in check and provide little more than shelter for some animal species.
In other places in the world, certain invasives remove too much water from the land in drought-sensitive areas, or create a higher wildfire risk, and so forth. But wildlife in general suffers most, as the wild is their home, supermarket, dating club and nursery, and if the quality of that deteriorates, so do most species.
- What can intervention do?
Depending on budget and resources, intervention can be impactful. What is not immediately apparent but often needed is sustained management afterward, due to seed sources stashed in the soil and coming in from neighboring lands.
- What can people without much biological knowledge do to help?
Volunteers make a significant difference here in the Mid-Atlantic. Once people get a clear picture of what's happening, and what they can do about it, it's amazing to see what they accomplish. Remember what Margaret Mead said. Resources such as the Lower Hudson PRISM, the DEC, and several other entities can provide information and update people with the latest techniques. There are many groups around now that people can join and learn from and work with, from parks and land trusts, conservation organizations, and restoration nonprofits such as the Wild Woods Restoration Project, among others. They gratefully accept all the help they can get, and give back in knowledge, expertise and camaraderie.
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