Superweeds

Interesting piece in the New York Times Magazine yesterday on how weeds will fare in a warmer, carbon enriched atmosphere. Quite well, it seems. In short, weeds will grow faster and taller, and some of their noxious properties will intensify. Weeds generate more pollen in response to higher temperatures and CO2 concentrations, and their pollens contains higher levels of the protein that causes allergic reactions in persons with hay fever. Levels of the irritant urushiol in poison ivy increase as well. Weeds from warmer climates will spread north, with some scientists predicting kudzu ("the weed that ate the south") will reach the Upper Peninsula by 2015. That, for this lover of UP rivers and woods, is truly scary.

There are upsides to these developments, though. Resillient weeds may supply genes that will help food crops to survive the changing climate, and some, notably kudzu, may be excellent sources of ethanol.

All this is one reminder that living things tend not to stay in whatever places societies assign them, and that these places are brittle fictions to begin with: a fact surely frustrating to native landscape enthusiasts and industrial farmers alike.