Example for Grade 7: Explanatory – Invasive Species - ID: 4816

Many invasive species are thought to be a pain in the environment that they were brought up in, and they can be but some invasive plant species can be a pleasure in the environment and can add more diversity in the environment. People can think what they want, but some invasive species can succeed in the environment because they have predators that keep them in check and don’t allow them to overgrow in the environment and also these invasive plant species are planted in the right area and don’t kill out other plant species by taking up too much water and sunlight. Also many invasive plant species can become a nuisance because they don’t have a natural predator in the environment, and they are planted in the wrong area and overgrow all the plants around it.

Invasive plant species can have a predator that can tame the plant from overgrowing such as in Source 3: “High Point Employs Goats to Eradicate Weeds, Kudzu” there had been 50 goats that had been put in Wells Farm with a Lass amount of kudzu that has terrorized the farm. The goats had been put in to graze the land and eat kudzu, grass, nail trees, and other plants that had grown on the farm. The kudzu plant could have devastated the natural area but the goats had cleared it relatively quickly, and the mill had been rid of this awful plant. The kudzu, if this process kept up, would begin to regrow but if the goats still kept at it they would be able to permanently rid the whole Highland Mill complex of this invasive plant, but it would still take a span of many many years to do this. I believe though that this process would help even more from all the poisonous pesticides that people use along with the machines to get rid of these invasive plants, but the goats eating the kudzu would help the environment with a more natural and efficient way. Also the invasive species might become a nuisance because they don’t have predators to keep them in check because as the kudzu in the Highland Mill complex there had been kudzu vines that had overgrown and destroy the environment along hillsides. The local people had thought because of the strong vine that the kudzu vines could be put on hillsides near oceans to protect against erosion, but they were wrong because the plant had overgrown and completely terrorized the hillsides all along the ocean coastlines.

Invasive plants can become a nuisance when you plant it in its non-native habitat because it can over dominate the other plants and can take away from the diversity of the natural habitat of these plants. As stated in the passage Source 1: “What’s the Problem with Invasive Plants?” said, “Invasive species can crowd out plants native to the ecosystem, causing the native plants to die off.” Also this can cause a domino affect in the food chain because if one of the plants dies of the insects and animals that eat that plant are gonna die. If those primary consumers die off then the secondary consumers die off, and so on until the entire food web is devastated from that one invasive species that killed off that one plant or animal. Also invasive plants can succeed in their environment because they are planted in a correct environment where they will not over dominate other species of native plants as in Source 1: “Are All Non-Native Plants Problematic?” it said, “Many people in North America plant English ivy as a ground-covering plant. Although it is not native to the continent, the ivy can be pruned regularly so that it does not grow out of control.” So with these invasive plants that are able to grow in different areas of the world this adds more diversity which will help the Earth’s ecosystem greatly.

Our environment is greatly effected by all of the pollutants and invasive species that become a real pain in the long run such as the kudzu plant was on the coast of the U.S., but this provided for more and more knowledge abut these such mishap. Although some people might think that all invasive species are terrible, they aren’t, some of these plants can greatly help the environment by adding much more diversity to the environment and can help many organisms in the long run.