SUNY Potsdam Scientists Publish Article on Purple Loosestrife in Nature Journal, Scientific Reports

SUNY Potsdam Faculty Members Publish Article on Purple Loosestrife in Northern New York in Nature's Scientific Reports

Potsdam, NY (04/19/2022) — SUNY Potsdam scientists have published an article on their invasive plant research in Scientific Reports on Nature.com, the sixth most-cited journal in the world. Dr. Jessica Rogers, Dr. Kamal Humagain and Dr. Adam Pearson authored the article, "Mapping the Purple Menace: Spatiotemporal Distribution of Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum Salicaria) Along Roadsides in Northern New York State."

In their article, the SUNY Potsdam faculty members detail their efforts to identify the extent of purple loosestrife infestations on North Country roadways and to investigate factors promoting the spread of the invasive plant species. Since 2017, Rogers has been conducting research with her students and collaborators on mapping infestations of purple loosestrife along roadsides in Northern New York. More recently, she developed a plan for combating the invasive species by introducing tiny beetles into local wetlands.

Rogers is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies, while Humagain and Pearson are assistant professors in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

In the beginning, the purple loosestrife was largely understudied in Northern New York. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had only noted five infestations in St. Lawrence County in 2017, but by the end of the summer, Rogers and her research assistants had pinpointed 663 individual points where the purple loosestrife was located along state highways. As documented in the Scientific Reports article, the number of documented infestations dropped to 537 by 2019, but the number of plants nearly doubled in that same time, as did the density and size of the infestations.

"I grew up in Potsdam, and when I first came back and started teaching in the North Country, one of things that I noticed was that the wetlands looked different, especially along the highways," Rogers said. "We knew we were on to something, that the purple loosestrife needed to be monitored."

In the study, the team also looked at whether factors like roadway culverts or seasonal mowing were correlated with changes in loosestrife infestations.

Last summer, Rogers worked with her students to draft Galerucella calmariensis beetles into the fight against purple loosestrife. The beetles have a one-track mind, only foraging on the purple plants and leaving the other non-invasive species in the wetlands unharmed. The students then monitored hundreds of miles of roadway to map the location of each loosestrife infestation using GIS mapping technology.

Scientific Reports is an open-access journal publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research from across the natural sciences, psychology, medicine and engineering. To learn more, visit www.nature.com/srep.

Environmental studies is a truly interdisciplinary major at SUNY Potsdam, incorporating course offerings from 14 departments and programs designed to prepare the environmental leaders of the future. For more information, visit www.potsdam.edu/academics/AAS/depts/EnvStudies.

SUNY Potsdam's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences prepares students for in-demand careers in the sciences, or for further study on the graduate or professional level. The department offers majors in geology, geographic information science (GIS) and environmental science, with a strong focus on both lab and field experience. SUNY Potsdam's location in the St. Lawrence Valley near the Adirondack Mountains provides a natural laboratory for both students and faculty. To learn more, visit www.potsdam.edu/academics/AAS/depts/earth.

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