Friends of Six Mile Creek

Draft Invasives Report Released

Rare native plants in Six Mile Creek Natural Area are under siege from invasive species. A group of local experts led by Charlotte Ahcarya, Meriam Djelidi, Daniel Otis and Anna Stalter outlined the threats and described proposed plans of action in a DRAFT report. The report calls for increased vigilance in the area and special consideration of priority areas. For a copy of the draft report in PDF format click here. To add your name to a list of concerned cititizens and volunteers send an e-mail to zevross@earthink.net and you will be alerted about future work days.

Site Invasive Species Management Plan for
Six Mile Creek Natural Area

(a sample section)

1. INTRODUCTION
A. History of the management plan and the need for invasive species control
In winter 2005, the Natural Areas Commission (NAC) convened a group to advise them on management practices for the Six-Mile Creek Natural Area . The NAC was following up on recommendations in the Resource Inventory and Restoration Plan for the Six-Mile Creek Natural Area produced by Dr. Tom Whitlow and students in his restoration ecology class at Cornell University. The advisory group, which included members of the Cornell community and others with expertise in conservation, forest ecology, and invasive plants, came to be called the Six- Mile Creek Invasive Plant Advisory Committee (SCIPAC).

Dr. Whitlow’s restoration plan noted that invasive plants present a serious threat to the natural area: “Unless something is done about these [invasive] species, the area will quickly become overrun with exotic invasive plants....it cannot be stressed enough how important it is to implement a long-term invasive weed eradication program and start controlling these plants now” (p. 72). Accordingly, SCIPAC members expanded on the invasives work undertaken by the class, choosing 19 species that presented serious threats, mapping their locations when possible, and developing control plans.

Since 2003, the Friends of Six Mile Creek, a citizens group, has organized volunteer work days, which are largely devoted to invasive plant removal. As had NAC before them, SCIPAC initially thought that continued, but increased, volunteer effort would be adequate to prevent the spread of invasive species in the natural area. It became evident, however, as SCIPAC members gathered information, that the problem was more serious, and that the solution would require more intensive long-term effort than volunteers alone could provide.

The mission statement of SCIPAC became: To preserve for future generations the ecological integrity and beauty of the threatened native community of the Six-Mile Creek basin, we will (1) identify and protect populations of native wildflowers, rare plants, and old growth; (2) control invasive plant species, emphasizing small, nascent populations that can be eradicated before they spread throughout the basin; and (3) monitor and report on our progress.

The consequences of invasion
The invasion of natural communities by (primarily) nonnative plants is an insidious problem because it is obvious only to the informed. When a forest is clear-cut for lumber or bulldozed for development, the changed landscape is obvious to all. Invasive plants can alter an ecosystem just as thoroughly, but because the process involves one species replacing another over a relatively long time period, few people notice.

When invasives overrun a native forest, every organism in the ecosystem is affected. The loss of the Six-Mile Creek Natural Area to invasives would be especially unfortunate because, for the last two hundred years, the site has provided a refuge for native plant populations and the species that depend on them. The landscape of Tompkins County was once 99.7 percent forested, but by 1900, 80 percent of this forest had been cut and the land plowed. Only areas unsuitable for crops or grazing retained vestiges of native ecosystems. The Six-Mile Creek Natural Area is one of these remnants; although parts of the natural area are heavily invaded, some areas are nearly pristine
and unusually rich in rare species.

Why combat invasives?
A recent flora of Tompkins County found 2027 plant species growing here; of these, 800—about 40 percent—are nonnatives, and approximately 10% of those are considered invasive. Many nonnative invasive plants left most of their specialized pathogens and herbivores behind, giving them a competitive advantage over the native flora. This competition can lead to local extirpation of native plant species. For the many native plant species found over a broad swathe of the Northeast, local extirpation does not necessarily mean complete extinction. However, if native plant communities are not preserved they will eventually be found only in the center of great preserves. Small, fragmented forests like those surrounding Ithaca may lose native species: the Norway maples may replace sugar maples; garlic mustard may replace trilliums and other spring ephemerals. Indeed, the edges of these small forests, including those around Six-Mile Creek, are already saturated with buckthorn, privet, and honeysuckle rather than native sumac and spicebush. Few private landowners have the desire, the knowledge, and the labor to address this problem. It is a monumental task, one that must be carried on in perpetuity, which puts it beyond the reach of an individual person’s enthusiasm. In our view, then, efforts to preserve uninvaded native ecosystems must be overseen by permanent institutions. The longer we fail to address the invasives problem, the worse it will get. If we don’t act, in a century there may be no place in central New York where one can see an example of the healthy, uninvaded forest ecosystems that once covered the Northeast. These are worth preserving. for they are part of our biological heritage, the context in which our communities evolved.

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