Episode 11: Tree-of-Heaven

Fungi Town

Welcome back, citizen!

Invasive species are a hot topic these days. With pythons in Florida and Lion Fish at the Atlantic coast, they're making news everywhere. But what exactly is an "invasive species" and how do we control them? I'll answer those questions and talk to Kristen Wickert from West Virginia University about how she's learning to control an invasive tree.

If you want to learn more about this episode's topics, here are some links:

Kudzu (Atlantic Journal Constitution)

Kudzu (Smithsonian Magazine)

Lion Fish (NOAA)

Lion Fish (Nature)

Biolcontrol (Sciencing.com)

Biocontrol (Biocontrol Journal)

Cane Toads (National Geographic)

Cane Toads (Australian Government)

Mongoose (Hawaiian Government)

Mongoose (MauiInvasive.org)

Mongoose (BigIslandNow.com)

Tree-of-Heaven (Nature Conservancy)

Tree-of-Heaven (Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources)

Tree-of-Heaven (USDA)

A photo comparing healthy and infected branches:

A photo showing the transfer of purple dye in Kristen's experiment:

Thank you to Kristen Wickert from West Virginia University for sharing her expertise on the show and to Dr. Marin Brewer for her contribution to De-funked! You can read Kristen's paper titled, "Seed Production, Viability, and Reproductive Limits of the Invasive Ailanthus altissima (Tree-of-Heaven) within Invaded Environments" here. Please check out my sponsor, Lichen Landscapes, for unique cards and prints and don't forget to enter "FUNGITOWN" in the order notes.

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Fungi Town is written, directed and produced by Jen Parrilli and hosted on Podbean. Theme music is by the awesome Athens, GA band Shehehe. Defunked theme music is Fminor_Funk_BassGroove_100bpm by GRD-music, eating apple by niwki, wind by InspectorJ, african-lion by soundbytez, ship horn by Grotelue, creaky dock by kev_durr, ship bell by CGEffex, pet shop by RTB45, boa constrictor by Kjell Persson, chopping wood by MAJ061785, chomp chew bite by bbrocer, tea by MC_Minnaar, gulp by brookmorgan, spray by WeeJee_vdH, squeak by Nakhas, and cane toad by bhobby; all used via Creative Commons license through Freesound. Photos were contributed by Kristen Wickert and used with permission.

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A transcript of this episode is available here.