Sudbury Valley TrusteesConservation, Collaboration, and Community since 1953

Non-native, invasive species of plants are changing the watershed of the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Rivers, altering habitats and disrupting ecological processes.  The impacts of invasives do not stop at property boundaries, and all efforts to control them need to take this into account.   SVT is part of a new coalition called the SuAsCo Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA), which is addressing issues of both invasive plants and animals.  Our partners in this endeavor include the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Mass Audubon, the National Park Service, New England Wildflower Society and several municipalities and local land trusts.   This collaboration provides for a regional approach to invasive species management, across ownership and organizational boundaries.  Collectively we are sharing resources and expertise and are prioritizing species and sites requiring management.

The CISMA Steering Committee has identified purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) as one of the highest priority invasive species for management.  Control of purple loosestrife is also a priority of the Massachusetts Wetlands Restoration Program.  Purple loosestrife is the pretty, purple flower that you can view in abundance along the Sudbury River and in other wet meadows.  It is an aggressively invasive plant, originally from Europe and Asia.  In the United States, there are no native "predator" species that control purple loosestrife populations.  As a result, this invasive plant spreads rapidly in wetlands and causes significant impairments, including reduced native plant coverage, lower plant diversity, and degraded wildlife habitat.

Biocontrol agents are natural competitors imported from the invasive species’ native landscape to a location where the invasive is growing out of control. For purple loosestrife, select species of beetles from Europe (where purple loosestrife is native) were studied to demonstrate their effectiveness as biocontrol agents. These beetles (Galerucella sp.) have been used successfully in the United States since the early 1990s to control purple loosestrife infestations. Treatments have occurred in all the New England states, including Massachusetts, where beetles were first released at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Results in our watershed have been very positive, and there have been no negative impacts on our native flora and insects.

SVT is coordinating a project during this coming year to conduct bio-control of purple loosestrife.  Several partners and volunteers will be cultivating purple loosestrife plants and raising Galerucella beetles in the spring.  In the summer, the beetles will be released at selected sites in the watershed.  Participants will conduct monitoring to assess the effectiveness of the beetles in controlling the loosestrife.  Our partners in this particular effort include the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the towns of Lincoln, Sudbury, Concord, and Southborough, New England Wildflower Society, and the Fay School in Southborough. 

SVT is looking for volunteers to participate in this project.  We need volunteers that can assist with raising the plants and beetles at Wolbach Farm, and we also need volunteers to assist with monitoring in the wetlands in spring and late summer.  If you are interested, please contact Laura Mattei at 978-443-5588, ext.34.