EXOTIC PLANTS AND AFFECTS

Exotic Plants and How They Affect Different Wildlife Species in Texas
Brittany N. Wright
Tarleton State University

Brittany N. Wright, Horticultural Design, Tarleton State University

The Department of Agricultural Services and Development

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Abstract
This paper references peer review articles that examine exotic plants and how they affect
different wildlife species. Each article holds different but valuable information but particular
emphasis was placed upon buffelgrass. The two main articles that are being used have an
abundant amount of information about exotic plants. Exotic plants are defined as, A plant that is
both non-native and able to establish on many sites, grow quickly, and spread to the point of
disrupting plant communities or ecosystems. These articles discuss the positive and negative
aspects of each plants use. The overall consensus among the articles was that exotic plants are
not beneficial for wildlife species. This paper looks at the works of Flanders, Fulbright, Hanselka
and Lashley and more. These articles need to be studied carefully and examined for their
discussion on whether or not exotic plants truly affect the wildlife that is around them.
Keywords: exotic plants, wildlife species, agriculture

EXOTIC PLANTS AND AFFECTS

Literature Review
Effects of Invasive Exotic Grasses is an article that has a lot of information on birds and
exotic grasses. It goes into great detail using scientific words even to make it more universal for
everyone. It explains how exotic plants and grasses have a negative and even sometimes a
positive effect on birds. There are even a few tables that they used for their research.
The article Exotic grass invasion will be the main one used because it has a little bit of
everything. It talks about exotic grasses and all sorts of different animals that they affect. It has
charts and graphs with plenty of information in them. They discuss ecosystems and grass
managementhow it can get rid.
South Texas Wonder Grass is an article that has a variety of information on buffelgrass
and how it affects the South Texas region. It goes into other species as well and describes how
buffelgrass survives. They also have an experts opinion on why it flourishes and is hard to kill
off. It is an interesting article that holds quite a bit of useful information.
The article White-Tailed Deer Vigilance focuses more on white-tailed deer and how they
eat and live in different environments. White-tail deer are plentiful in Texas and they need plenty
of food to eat on so they can survive and keep going. It focuses more on the breeding of the deer
than their dietwhich could be useful. Though it does not have a lot of information that could be
used it still has some that could be taken from it and used.
The USDA Weeds List is a website that allows you to look up different weeds. You can do
it by state or by the different sections of the plants. This has a lot of info and could help with
trying to find the scientific names of plants. Though it will be mostly using it for weeds there is a
way to just look up regular plants if needed.

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The article Texas Today has quite a bit of information on grasses in Texas and how they
affect the environment. One of the grasses they mentionKleberg bluestem which is abundant
in South Texas. Most of the grasses that are exotic tend to show up in South Texas and are hard
to get rid of. Overall this article has some good information that will be useful.
Body
Numerous studies have been conducted on exotic plantsmainly grassesthat are
distributed throughout Texas. Exotic plants are defined as, A plant that is both non-native and
able to establish on many sites, grow quickly, and spread to the point of disrupting plant
communities or ecosystems. These plants are aggressive and affect other species around them
mainly wildlife species. Some of these plants are almost impossible to get rid of, and therefore
they keep spreading and wreaking havoc on the Texas ecosystems which they live in. A key point
that current research has pointed to is that most of these exotic grasses and plants dwell in the
southern region of Texas. The wildlife species that these plants affect include birds, invertebrates
and various other mammalsdepending on their specific ecosystem. Overall the research have
conducted seems to be consistent and provides important information about how exotic plants
work and are able to grow.
Some of the exotic plants researched are Buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare), Lehmann
lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana), Guineagrass (Urochloa maxima), Bermudagrass (Cynodon
dactylon), Caucasian bluestem (Bothriochloa bladhi), Kelbergs bluestem (Dichanthium
annulatum). These plants or better yet grasses are found throughout Texas.
Buffelgrass grows in southern Texas tends to not travel north because it has no cold
tolerance and would most likely not survive. Lehmann lovegrassanother of the exotic grasses

EXOTIC PLANTS AND AFFECTS

found in the southern part of Texas but it also in the western part. Guineagrass is a south Texas
grass as well but Bermudagrass is in the south-central region area of Texas. The Bermudagrass is
a great pasture grass which means that some people actually want it to grow so that their cattle
can graze on ittherefore it is not as worrisome as some of the other more detrimental grasses
that seem to appear in Texas. As previously mentioned the exotic grasses tend to grow towards
the southern region of Texas. This occurs mostly because these exotic grasses are cold-hardy.
Some of these grasses grow best when it rains heavily while others grow better in dryer
conditions--Lehmann lovegrassprefers to make its home in the western region of Texas. A
point to be made about these Texas exotic plants is that not all of them are an invasive species.
Depending upon on how the plant responds to the ecosystem, they create their own population by
moving into an area that has native plants. Invasive species is defined as, An invasive species is
defined as a species that is 1) non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and 2)
whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to
human health.' In contrast to item 2) of the Executive Order, which includes plants invasive in
agricultural settings, the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group lists non-native plants as
invasive only if they invade minimally managed (natural) areas. Sometimes they end up not
harming the native plants and other times they end up pushing them out of their own
environment which is detrimental to the native plants that dwell there. Again the species that are
regarded as being invasive tend to have different heights, fast paced growth, and even early and
extended flowering on some of the plants. It can be difficult at times to determine if an exotic
plant is invasive even though it may not have originated there in the first place it can still flourish
and that is part of the problem. Some of these plants thrivewhich is good for them but it is not

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always good for the ecosystem with which it grows in. Now that we know a variety of the exotic
grasses that are present needs to know some of the wildlife species that are around.

EXOTIC PLANTS AND AFFECTS

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Many wildlife species live in various ecosystems and need many different things to
survive and thrive in their environmentecosystem. The information gained from this research
found was primarily focused on birds. There are many different bird species out there but the
main five species were Lark Sparrows (Chondestes grammacus), Black throated Sparrow
(Amphisipiza bilineata), Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) Northern Bobwhite
(Colinus virginianus), and Cassins Sparrow (Aimophilla cassini).
Though there is other wildlife that is affected by exotic plants or grasses birds tend to be
the main victim. There are invertebrates such as arthropods, herpetofauna such as horn lizards
(Phrynosoma cornutum). Others are mammals mentioned were the cotton rat (Sigmodon
hispidus), Maritime pocket gophers (Geomys personatus maritimus) and some deer species. All
of these different species have something in common and that is their ability to survive in an
ecosystem that has exotic plants along with some native ones as well.
To examine the affects that native versus exotic plants has on ecosystem, researchers
gather information that such as percentages that were determined when research on birds was
being done. It was found that overall bird population and abundance was thirty-two percent
greater on native grasses than on exotic ones. While the Lark sparrows were about seventy
percent more effective in a native grass environment than when they were in this one. It was also
found that four of the other bird species mentioned was two breeds of sparrows, a bobwhite, and
a breed of mockingbird. All of these research findings show that they became more abundant in
the native grass environment than in an exotic grass. Facts found that one the percentages were
ranging from twenty-six to seventy. In the southern part of Texas it was viewed that birds would
have a harder time flourishing in this area due to the abundance of exotic plants and grasses that
grow there. The same was found for all the other animalsinvertebrates, mammals,

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herpetofaunathat all did better in an environment with native grasses. There are ways to get rid
of the exotic grasses and plants but it can be rather difficult to accomplish and one will never
fully get rid of thembut they can be controlled.

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Conclusion
It has been determined that species are able to survive even thrive with plants that are not
native to their ecosystem. Native plants and grasses are important in an environment different
animals need different things in an environment to survive and thrive. Native plants and grasses
are proven to be better for an environment. Wildlife species can of course survive in an
environment or ecosystem with exotic plants it is just more beneficial if they are with what they
are naturally supposed to be with. Therefore everything that has been researched and determined
all says pretty much the same thing that exotic plants are not necessarily bad or negative for
birds, mammals, invertebrates and other species. But it was also discovered that these animals do
not do as well or flourish in their natural environment with exotic plants as they would with the
native. Therefore the ideal ecosystem would be for it to have native plants only in it and nothing
else. But of course that is not always possible in an ecosystem there will always be plants out
there that have a negative effect on the environment around them. There are even plants out there
that will kill off the wildlife around them this is most true for those animals that are herbivores.
Or it can even happen if a carnivore or an omnivore feeds on another mammal, reptile or
something that consumed a plant that may not be necessarily toxic to them but is to the carnivore
that will consume it. All of this still points to the fact that exotic plants still negatively affect the
wildlife around them.

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Flanders, A., Kuvlesky, W., Ruthven, D., Zaiglin, R., Bingham, R., Fulbright, T., . . . Brennan, L.
(n.d.). Effects Of Invasive Exotic Grasses On South Texas Rangeland Breeding Birds.
Auk The Auk, 171-171.
Fulbright, T. E., Hickman, K. R., & Hewitt, D. G. (2013). Exotic grass invasion and wildlife
abundance and diversity, South-Central United States. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 37(3),
503-509. doi:10.1002/wsb.312
Hanselka, C. (1988). Rangelands. Buffelgrass: South Texas Wonder Grass, 10(6), 279-279.
Lashley, M., Chitwood, M., Biggerstaff, M., Morina, D., Moorman, C., & Deperno, C. (2014).
White-Tailed Deer Vigilance: The Influence of Social and Environmental Factors. PLoS
ONE.
Natural Resources Conservation Service. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ct/technical/ecoscience/invasive/?
cid=nrcs142p2_011124
None State Noxious Weeds List | USDA PLANTS. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2015.
Smith, F. (2010). Texas Today: A Sea of the Wrong Grasses. Ecological Restoration, 112-117.