Ecological Threats
Each natural community faces ecological threats that could change its defining features, leading to its decline.
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Non-Native Invasive Plants
The Mesic Mixed Hardwood Forest in Rock Creek Park contains many non-native invasive plants. The harms caused by non-native invasive plants include competition with natives for soil nutrients, sunlight, and pollinators, and degradation of animal habitat. Some of the most common ones are oriental bittersweet, Japanese barberry, and Japanese honeysuckle. Linden arrow-wood is rapidly gaining ground. (* indicates non-native)
- autumn-olive* (shrub)
- English ivy* (vine)
- garlic mustard* (low plant)
- Japanese barberry* (shrub)
- Japanese honeysuckle* (vine)
- Japanese maple* (shrub)
- Japanese snowball* (shrub)
- Japanese stiltgrass* (low plant)
- linden arrow-wood* (shrub)
- mile-a-minute weed* (vine)
- multiflora rose* (shrub)
- Norway maple* (tree)
- oriental bittersweet* (vine)
- porcelain-berry* (vine)
- privets (shrub)
- wine raspberry* (shrub)
- winged burning-bush* (shrub)
Diseases, Pests, and Other Threats
Current and potential ecological threats for the Mesic Mixed Hardwood Forest in Rock Creek Park include the following:
- Excessive deer browse: decimation of wildflowers, oak seedlings, and shrubs
- Viburnum leaf beetle (potential): damage to mapleleaf viburnum
- Asian long-horned beetle (potential): damage to maples and slippery elm
- Gypsy moth: damage to oaks
- Beech bark disease (potential): damage to American beech
- Sudden oak death (potential): damage to oaks
- Dogwood anthracnose: decline of flowering dogwood
- Prolonged or repeated drought: weakening of plants' stress tolerance
- Fire: decimation of all the fire-sensitive species