1. In Module 4, we discussed individual and collective action. Now reading about the biodiversity problems, describe what you do on an individual level to hurt biodiversity?  What do you, or your family, do to help biodiversity?
2. What is your community and town is doing to hurt biodiversity? What about helping with biodiversity?
3. Research one invasive species that is affecting your area and discuss the problems that it is causing.

Several years ago, I got into gardening ornamentals.  I then proceeded to become addicted to rose gardening and joined many clubs and associations.  The gardening clubs were dedicated to bringing beautiful and fragrant roses to people’s gardens.  It involved a lot of time, maintenance, and chemicals.  At the time, my goal was to create the perfect rose garden and it seemed like the thing to do – of course the soil needed additives and of course weeds needed to be killed and of course chemicals needed to be added for the flowers to go bigger, brighter, and more often.  Unfortunately I did not realize that the chemical to kill the dandelions was also poisonous to many of the frog species that traveled through my garden.  I did not give it a thought that the sprays to kill Japanese beetles also hurt good species of insects.  I unknowingly was slowly killing the biodiversity in my garden, all in the name of nature and gardening.  Thankfully work and school came along and I stopped focusing on my hobby so much.  During the break, I learned a lot about the harm that I was doing.  When I got back into the hobby, I stopped killing the weeds, and instead planted helpful plants such as milkweed for the Monarch Butterfly.   I also started planting more native plants and made sure to not plant any invasive species.

The community and town is hurting biodiversity by growing a limited species of crops.  Most of the farms around my home grow corn and soybeans and through discussions at the local feed mill, it sounds like many of the farmers grow at a maximum of three or four different breeds of each crop.  Therefore, any problems that arise will hurt most of the crops in the area and therefore biodiversity is not very present.  However, my particular neighborhood has a lot of people expanding into home gardening and farmettes.  We are zoned agricultural and many people are taking care of the small stream that grows through the area, letting the tree areas on their lands grow, and adding animals to their land.

As for an invasive species in the area, the multiflora that was planted throughout the county in the 1980s as a natural barrier for farms and cattle is not becoming a large problem.  There has been an explosion of Rose Rosette Virus and it is using the multiflora as a host to spread.  The virus attacks roses among other crops such as peaches and similar species.  The virus causes ugly red heavy growth on the plant and eventually kills the plant.  There is no cure for the virus.  While gardeners are on the lookout for the virus and are regularly removing plants infected by it, the problem is that this multiflora is infected and no one keeps up with this invasive species.  Therefore, the virus infects this multiflora that grows, the wind then picks up the virus from the infected multiflora and passes it on to other plants and hurts other crops.  Multiflora was once used as a species that could solve the farmers’ entire problem in the area and now has become a threat to other crops in the area.