CONDON’S CORNER

Make Monarchs Great (in numbers) Again 

[Published March 11, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia.  Published March 12, 2025, by The Daily News-Record,  the daily newspaper of Harrisonburg, Virginia.] 

© Marlene A. Condon 2025 All Rights Reserved 

 

Migrating Monarchs depend upon nectar sources along the way to provide energy for their long-distance trip. During drought, potted plants (such as this lantana near the author’s carport), can make up for parched plants in your yard and surrounding areas. 

MAGA—Make America Great Again—is a revived political slogan originally employed by President Ronald Reagan in 1980. Many interpretations of its message exist, but one thing is for sure: Its current usage does not embody conservation of the environment that supports us.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/02/20/project-2025-what-environmental-cutbacks-has-trump-made-in-a-month-and-whats-next

It’s unfortunate but true that unless something occurs immediately following an action taken, such as getting lung cancer or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) as soon as one starts smoking, people often refuse to believe the connection between the events. The denial of climate change by our current president parallels this statement perfectly.

But our climate has indeed changed for the worse—as scientists had predicted. Summers have become blazingly hot and winters frigidly cold, while strong winds push over large trees that have died or are in the process of dying as a result of the increasingly frequent bouts of drought. And yet, small engines (lawn mowers, leaf blowers) are still often employed while many people continue to drive as much as ever, sending ever more pollutants responsible for climate change into our atmosphere.  

Climate change isn’t about just us. Its effects upon wildlife can be far greater than the consequences for humans. People have the ability to move somewhere more able to support them; animals don’t always enjoy that option (think seals and polar bears dependent upon Arctic icebergs that are becoming far fewer).

For insects, such as the Monarch butterfly, a severe shortage of precipitation (drought) or a precipitation deluge can increase individual mortality, as well as limit procreation. Recurring droughts in Virginia are very restrictive for the many plants that can feed adult Monarchs during their migration to Mexico.

Should we care about these fellow organisms? Absolutely. Wildlife represents the cogs in the environmental machine that keeps it functioning properly for the benefit of all living things. As we lose species, we lose the ability of the environment to fully support any of us. 

The Monarch—being a migratory species—is especially prone to difficulties caused by weather events. Its numbers have been precipitously dropping for many years now (though not only due to climate change), sending us a dire message that we would do well to heed: Something is terribly wrong with our world. 

When Monarchs were first discovered overwintering in Mexico in 1975, they covered the Oyamel fir trees in a mountainous forest location. Prominent entomologist Lincoln Brower, who studied Monarchs for six decades and spent the end of his career at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, was so awed upon viewing the wintering Monarchs within a year of their discovery, that he said, “It was like walking into Chartres Cathedral and seeing light coming through stained-glass windows. This was the eighth wonder of the world.”

https://www.nathab.com/know-before-you-go/mexico-central-america/monarch-butterfly-migration/monarch-guide/the-discovery/

Heartbreakingly, this eighth wonder of the world has been dwindling in numbers and is now being considered for threatened status by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

In the winter of 1995-96, 45 acres (18.21 hectares) of forest were covered with monarchs. From then to 2003-04, their populations fluctuated annually, with this last season showing 27.5 acres (11.13 hectares) of forest coverage. But then a downward spiral began in earnest, with the monarch’s forest coverage in the winter season of 2020 being just over 5 acres (2.02 hectares).

https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/the-great-monarch-migration

In the 2023-2024 season, the butterflies covered only 2.2 acres (0.9 hectares). It’s the second-worst year ever recorded. 5.4 acres (2.2 hectares) were recorded in the 2022-2023 season.

https://wildlifemanagement.institute/brief/february-2024/wintering-monarch-survey-shows-large-decline-numbers

The 2024-25 winter season survey numbers just came out, showing Monarchs are covering 4.42 acres (1.8 hectares), which is quite an improvement from last year. The annual survey measures the area of forest in which monarch butterflies hibernate each winter, and is considered a reliable indicator of the eastern monarch’s population status. Sadly, this is still pitifully far below their historic numbers from decades ago. 

https://xerces.org/press/number-of-monarchs-overwintering-in-mexico-increases-still-well-below-historic-norms

If you care about the Monarch butterfly and about preserving its unique migratory journey, please send your comments encouraging the Fish and Wildlife Service to employ the Endangered Species Act to try to help prevent the extinguishment of the eighth wonder of the world.

The comment period ends Wednesday, March 12, 2025. The link below will take you to a site that answers many questions you might have. It also provides the link and instructions for submitting your comments. 

https://monarchjointventure.org/blog/usfws-seeks-public-input-on-monarch-butterfly-esa-listing or look up “USFWS Seeks Public Input on Monarch Butterfly ESA Listing”.

Make Monarchs great (in numbers) again!

 

CONDON’S CORNER

Everyone Should Be on Toddler Time (Standard Time)

[Published March 8, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia. Published by The Daily News-Record, the daily newspaper of Harrisonburg, Virginia, on February 20, 2025.] 

https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/column/article_93fe4ebc-fb2f-11ef-843a-7b3a97647af0.html?mode=comments#tncms-source=login

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © 2025 Marlene A. Condon All Rights Reserved 

Getting up early often enables you to enjoy a beautiful sunrise.  

Congress has tried—and plans to try again—to abolish the annoying twice-a-year ritual of changing clocks by placing the United States permanently on Daylight Saving Time (DST). But before making this extremely impactful decision, our representatives need to first consult our little people—those who don’t suffer from government foolishness and clocks, and know naturally when to wake up—our toddlers who function on toddler time (i.e., Standard Time).

 

A young child—not needing to follow arbitrary rules created by adults for adults—follows mandatory rules determined by the biological clock which humans and other organisms possess. A toddler instinctively wakes up early in the morning in time to be active during the first sunlit hours of the day, which is vital for his system to function properly. Adults benefit similarly; that first exposure to the Sun’s photons suppresses the production of sleep-inducing melatonin (a hormone), waking us up to take on the day!

 

An internal biological clock determines when an organism should be active and when it should be dormant. Known as circadian rhythms, they’re different for various organisms, but—in general— are based upon the variable rising and setting times of the Sun.

 

Obviously, these biological rhythms are important, or they wouldn’t exist. Every aspect of the natural world has a particular purpose that perpetuates life by helping organisms fit well into their environment. Humans, who don’t see well at night, are more suited to daylight rather than nighttime activity and therefore have biological clocks set to get them up and about in the morning. Mice, on the other hand, wake up as the light of day is fading in order to forage under cover of darkness to be less conspicuous to predators.

 

Humans, however, want to run their lives as they see fit; not as Mother Nature demands. Biologically, we are supposed to become less active as darkness is falling, with sleep eventually overtaking us so our bodies can clean up our internal system by repairing interior damage done during the day’s activity. Without sufficient sleep, your body gets into trouble because it doesn’t get these indispensable actions completed, such as restoring its immune system or cleansing its brain of toxic chemicals.

 

Unfortunately, most people are not at all aware of this essential-to-our-wellbeing purpose of sleep and thus treat slumber as a waste of time, which it surely is not. This lack of respect for good-quality and a good quantity of sleep is exactly why too many folks argue for permanent Daylight Saving Time that literally robs us of the sleep our bodies stipulate that we get.

 

Consider the practical implications of DST: In the eastern U.S., families need to stay up until almost 10 PM to watch fireworks on the fourth of July—a holiday often followed by a work day, which means adults won’t get the seven to eight hours of sleep they should get to perform well at their jobs. Staying up late every night continues all summer because no one wants to go to bed when the Sun is still up, creating a huge sleep deficit for young and old alike by the time autumn rolls around.

 

To get more sunshine, follow a toddler’s and preschooler’s example: Be an early bird. Rise shortly before the Sun, have breakfast, and enjoy those first rays of sunshine each day, as Mother Nature intended. You can reset your biological clock by going to bed earlier and awakening earlier. Soon it will come naturally—as it biologically should! 

 

Don’t let the manipulative use of language—such as naming the bill to make DST permanent, “The Sunshine Protection Act”—fool you into thinking you’ll somehow get more hours of sunlight, which, of course, is nonsense. The day is 24 hours long, no matter the system employed for making order of it, and the hours of sunshine versus darkness is independent of this artificially contrived system that ignores biology and therefore is, in plain speaking, stupid.

 

Much talk has taken place for decades about Americans not getting enough sleep and the dangerous consequences resulting from this situation, such as more vehicular accidents due to falling asleep at the wheel or poor reaction time, and stressed motorists confronting others (road rage), sometimes fatally. So how can Congress possibly take seriously the idea of keeping DST year around, when it’s not protecting sunshine, but rather, stealing sleep? 

 

To avoid such ill effects from lack of sleep as mental health issues, neurological concerns, changes in your appearance (such as dark, undereye circles), vulnerability to illness, weight gain, higher stress levels that contribute to heart disease and abnormal heart rhythm, and much more, according to the Cleveland Clinic, you should let your representatives know how inane DST would be year around. Tell them we all need to be on Toddler Time.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/happens-body-dont-get-enough-sleep

 

 

CONDON’S CORNER

“Invasives” Reality Check: Negative Impacts on Biodiversity Negligible

[Published March 1, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia. ] 

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © 2025 Marlene A. Condon All Rights Reserved 

What appears to the inexpert eye to be “plant invasiveness” is actually plant succession, whereby alien pioneer plants better suited to growing well in the disrupted soil conditions created by man—as seen taking place here—have moved in to refurbish a razed natural area.   

A native Northern Cardinal finds sustenance by consuming the seeds from an Asian Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) tree in the author’s yard on a fall day.

Before writing this article, I saw yet another discussion on social media about woods being cleared for more development. In Charlottesville and Waynesboro over the past few months, I’ve been stunned by the absolutely enormous areas of red clay made visible by bulldozers pushing down trees and other kinds of plants. And I’ve wondered how, in the face of all this destruction of natural areas, does anyone believe the most pressing problem for our wildlife can possibly be “invasive” plants?

 

This abundance of development makes completely clear what the biggest problem is for the environment: too many people on the planet—8.2 billion and increasing every moment. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

 

Although discussing our booming numbers is considered impolite, if not taboo, it's vital for folks to be made aware of the ensuing consequences of human overpopulation.

 

According to WorldAtlas.com (a site that provides content about the environment and other subject matter), human exploitation of resources —e.g., overhunting, overfishing, and poaching endangered species—is responsible for a 37% loss in wildlife biodiversity. Habitat degradation and alteration accounts for a further 31.4% loss, with complete habitat loss being responsible for another 13.4%. These three causes comprise the major reasons for wildlife depletion at almost 82%.

 

But what is the most publicized explanation for wildlife losses? So-called “invasives”. Yet “invasive” species rank fifth out of the seven major causes of decline in wildlife populations worldwide, accounting for only 5.1% of the loss in biodiversity. As this category includes nonnative animals, I suspect that nonnative animals are the real problem rather than nonnative plants. Non-native animals compete for space (habitat), whereas all plants provide environmental services that assist wildlife. Only in rare instances might alien plants be problematic, such as in wetlands.

 

Isn’t it time to focus on problems that are far more impactful and solvable than removing “invasive” plants that do assist wildlife to survive in degraded areas? Cats, for example, are estimated to kill 1.3-4.0 billion birds and 6.3 -22.3 billion mammals annually in the United States.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

 

If people truly care about our wildlife, why has it been impossible to eliminate this longtime threat to our critters? The answer: Thanks to vocal proponents of letting both pet and feral cats roam freely, people are reluctant to take on this battle.

 

Whether it’s a private individual who doesn’t want to make his neighbor angry, or politicians who worry more about votes than doing what’s right for the greater good (wildlife keeps the environment running properly), people find it easier to kill plants. And, of course, they themselves may even agree with allowing cats outside.

 

Then there are the many other aspects of human lives that people simply don’t want to change. Blaming plants you don’t care about might be preferable to shutting off your outdoor lights that, during warm weather, attract insects that should be mating, such as moths that have declined precipitously,

 

Some folks give little thought to all the animals they kill while driving and thus don’t limit their trips out and about even though they could with better planning. They should also consider the pollution of the soil and water caused by runoff of the gas and oil that collects on roadways and parking lots.

 

And you might think people would care about the pollution caused by vehicle exhaust, a leading cause of climate change that affects both wildlife and people. You can drive by any public school in your area before classes begin or end and see a long line of cars waiting to get into or out of the school grounds, even though buses drive by or close to these people’s homes twice a day.

 

Another serious threat to wildlife is the use of pesticides around homes and businesses, not to mention the pesticides employed in the war on so-called invasive plants.

 

You can, as an individual, help stem the loss of wildlife by giving serious consideration to the actions listed above and limiting how much you participate in them. If you truly care about the future of the Earth and our lives upon this planet, you should step up to the plate.

 

Contact local politicians and make them understand the need to pass a law that demands that cats be kept indoors. It should go without saying that anyone who truly cares about these animals wouldn’t want them to be outside in cold weather (they originated in warm-climate areas) and to be exposed to the dangers outside, such as being run over by a vehicle or sickened by disease.

 

The problems are many, but obvious and fixable. We just need folks to stop focusing on the 5% (alien plants and animals they see as “weeds” and “vermin”, respectively) and start focusing on the 95% (everything else) that truly damages the environment, leading to a great loss of biodiversity.

  

 

CONDON’S CORNER

 The Value of “Invasive” Plants

[Published February 26, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia]

https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/column/article_bd5a59a4-f3d7-11ef-9d44-dbecc45fb578.html

[Also published on March 17, 2025 by The Daily News-Record, the daily newspaper of Harrisonburg, Virginia]

© Marlene A. Condon 2025 All Rights Reserved 

French philosopher Henri Bergson is quoted as saying, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” In the case of “invasive” plants, most people’s minds are prepared only to see useless alien plants pushing out native plants and posing a threat to us and our native wildlife.

 

In other words, having been repeatedly exposed to the misleading invasive-plant narrative recounted day after day on television news and public television programs, as well as in newspaper and magazine articles, people see what they’ve been told to see. But what they think they see is not reality. It’s the mis- and even dis-information with which their minds have been filled.

 

Herewith, truisms regarding the wildlife value of so-called invasive plants that only the unbiased eye can see.

 

Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) This Asian shrub is the most valuable plant for wildlife usage I’ve ever documented, yet it is, perhaps, the most hated of “invasive” plants. Because it’s easily seen filling in old farm fields and highway medians, usually alongside the native Eastern Redcedar (Juniperus virginiana)—once also despised by farmers—it appears to be overly numerous.

 

Yet we should be thankful for this plant. Like the redcedar, it’s a colonizer working to refurbish degraded soil that has been compacted by cows or bulldozers and is nutrient-poor due to loss of topsoil—conditions most native plants find difficult or impossible to grow in. But unlike the native juniper, Autumn Olive feeds a huge variety of wildlife with its buds, blooms, fruits, and even its leaves, thus dispensing vital nutrition throughout the year. By increasing the diversity of plant life in degraded areas, Autumn Olive increases the diversity of wildlife as well. 

 

Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus). Almost equal in value to the Autumn Olive, this Asian shrub also provides a cornucopia of food in the form of buds, blooms, fruits, and stems for an array of wildlife, in addition to nesting sites for birds.

 

English Ivy(Hedera helix L.) Brought here by early European colonists, English Ivy is a superb vine for assisting pollinators and birds in disrupted soils (old homesteads and more-recent development). It makes flowers in fall when many blooming plants are petering out, and the resulting blue fruits persist into winter.  A plant that spreads mainly by vegetative growth, it’s typically found only where people dwelled long ago or more currently, having been deliberately planted by them.

The interestingly shaped fruits of English Ivy (Hedera helix L.) near the end of December help to feed local and migratory birds at the edge of a restaurant’s parking lot in Charlottesville.

 

Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) Once disparaged as much as Autumn Olive is now, this vine is a wonderful wildlife plant. In this time of climate change, especially, nonnative plants are much more reliable in their habits and can be counted on to assist animals that come out of hibernation or migrate back too early to receive sustenance from still-dormant native plants. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, in particular, benefit from its early blooms loaded with nectar upon its return to our area in April.  

 

Bradford Pear (Pyrus calleryana) Native to East Asia and spreading for the same reasons other “invasive” plants move away from their original locations, this  species grows profusely in the disrupted soils of retired farmland and disturbed areas of old and new developments. The multitude of trees in limited areas— eye-catching in spring due to the white flowers conspicuously covering every bough— draws attention to their presence. Only because these wildlife-friendly trees are nonnative do folks complain about them, but they shouldn’t. In this time of pollinators struggling to survive, Bradford Pears are a lifeline, supplying a large supply of nectar for bees and numerous other kinds of insects. The fruits are especially important to wintering birds.  

A blooming Bradford Pear (Pyrus calleryana) stands alone in a sea of native trees, the only woody plant able to feed native pollinators flying on a March day. 

 

Royal Paulownia (Paulownia tomentosa) Originating in Eastern Asia, this large tree was admired just a few decades ago for its unusually large purple flowers that opened in spring. But with the big push for only native plants to occupy the landscape, people have been cutting down these unique trees. What’s left are empty spaces unable to provide the wealth of food the Paulownias once did. The huge foxglove-shaped blooms hold an abundance of nectar for pollinators and transform into pods of tiny seeds beloved by finches, especially the American Goldfinch and the Purple Finch from farther north.

 

Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) A lovely herbaceous plant that blooms well into fall, even during severe droughts, this invaluable plant is targeted for removal by folks who are against nonnative plants and ignorant of their great worth to wildlife. Black Knapweed is one of the few plants our overabundance of deer refrain from eating, even when food is scarce. Without this species of knapweed growing in my yard in 2024, bees, beetles, and butterflies would have died, especially those still active in late fall as the heat of summer endured into fall.

A Pennsylvania Leatherwing beetle (Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus) finds nourishment on a Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) bloom in September in the author’s yard.

Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) Once considered the scourge of lawns, this small, yellow-blooming herbaceous plant has practically disappeared from towns and subdivisions, thanks to pesticides. They might be lost in rural areas, too, as people have become obsessed with manicuring (sanitizing) the environment. But it should be noted that they feed pollinators, sometimes even on warm winter days when nothing else is blooming and insects are active.  

 

People need to recognize the significant roles “invasive” plants play in our environment.

 

NATURE ADVICE:

All “invasive” plants provide one or more of the following environmental services:

·    Holding soil along degraded waterways (think Japanese Knotweed) and on steep, barren slopes in yards (e.g., English Ivy)

·    Enriching nutrient-poor soil with nitrogen by way of nitrogen-fixing roots (e.g., Autumn Olive) and/or decomposition of the plant after it, or sections of it, dies

·    If evergreen, furnishing shelter in winter where wildlife can sleep and/or roost (e.g., Japanese Honeysuckle)

·    In summer, supplying nesting sites (e.g., Japanese Barberry) for some kinds of birds and a place for some kinds of insects to lay eggs (e.g., Royal Paulownia)

·    Feeding pollinators with nectar-filled blooms (e.g., Burning Bush)

·    Feeding birds and/or mammals with fruits, buds, seeds, and/or leaves (e.g., Ailanthus)

·    During drought, making drinking water and/or sap available to birds and insects by guttation (e.g., bamboo).    

A pair of goldfinches visit a small bamboo (subfamily Bambusoideae) stem in the author’s yard to obtain water and/or sap.

 

CONDON’S CORNER

The Great Manipulation (Well known Scientist Deceives the Public)

[Published February 24, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia. Published by The Daily News-Record, the daily newspaper of Harrisonburg, Virginia, on March 10, 2025.] 

https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/column/marlene-condon-the-great-manipulation-or-how-a-well-known-scientist-deceived-the-public/article_3083a12a-f260-11ef-8e83-ff47fffc5ac9.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © 2025 Marlene A. Condon All Rights Reserved 

On June 8, 2011, the journal Nature published a commentary by 19 ecologists who urged conservationists to “assess organisms on environmental impact rather than on whether they are natives”.

https://www.nature.com/articles/474153a

 

“Classifying biota [the plants and animals of a region] according to their adherence to cultural standards of belonging, citizenship, fair play and morality does not advance our understanding of ecology [the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings]. Over the past few decades, this perspective has led many conservation and restoration efforts down paths that make little ecological or economic sense”.

 

This other side to the story regarding alien species—in particular, nonnative “invasive” plants—is rarely publicized, yet it should be. It’s been fourteen years since this essay appeared and was ignored by virtually everyone. As a result, the general public, government at every level, scientists, the media, and especially environmental groups and the people that support them have currently instituted a scorched-earth policy that’s bringing about much destruction of viable habitat and the poisoning of our environment via herbicides.

 

Many people now fervently believe that so-called invasive alien plants pose a dire threat to native insects, undoubtedly due to the 2007 book by entomologist Doug Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home, which they often cite. In it, he wrote that “scientists who know what they are talking about” developed “an extensive body of theory” that predicts that native plant-eating insects “should be able to eat only vegetation from plants with which they share an evolutionary history”.

 

This assertion, which holds that herbivorous insects eat only those plants they have co-evolved with under the same environmental circumstances, sounds logical to the uninitiated. However, it disintegrates under scrutiny.

 

Dr. Tallamy tells us these 6-legged critters that feed upon plant tissues are limited to feeding upon “no more than a few plant lineages [a single line of genetic descent through time]”, thus making them “specialists”. However, each plant lineage can include hundreds, if not thousands, of species around the world—which means an insect is likely to be able to feed upon at least some of the plants that are related genetically, regardless of their country of origin.

 

Indeed, gardeners and butterfly enthusiasts know full well that the Monarch butterfly can feed on milkweeds that are not native to their region. The Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) is often planted in eastern gardens and considered native because it grows in the United States, but it's actually only native to the western half of North America. If President Thomas Jefferson hadn't made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the central area of our country might still be owned by France, in which case no one would dare call this milkweed "native". Obviously, then, geo-political boundaries do not determine whether a plant is native to your location.  

We know that countries share plant lineages (and even some species), so it should be expected that phytophagous (herbivorous) insects should be able to eat vegetation from other areas on the Earth, and, indeed, they do (in contrast to Professor Tallamy’s “extensive body of theory” to the contrary).

 

In Bringing Nature Home, Doug Tallamy recounts the plight of native Eastern Tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum) that ran out of cherry leaves on a tree too small to feed them adequately. He mentions that leaves were still available to the caterpillars in the form of a Japanese Honeysuckle vine (Lonicera japonica) that had climbed the little tree, but he points out that the caterpillars “had not taken a single bite out of the alien plant…even in the face of starvation”.

 

The duplicity embedded in this tale is the subtle suggestion that the caterpillars would have eaten the honeysuckle if only it had been native, as he never points out that the caterpillars would have faced starvation even in the presence of a native vine if—like the alien honeysuckle—it wasn’t a member of the Rose Family (as is this caterpillar’s preferred native host plant, the cherry).

 

I have documented tent caterpillars feeding on a relative of the cherry—the nonnative, unevolved with, and much despised Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) growing at the base of a leaf-stripped Black Cherry tree (Prunus serotina). A factuality is that you can find native insects feeding upon nonnative plants, but, of course, you need to look!

Native Eastern Tent caterpillars feeding upon an alien Multiflora Rose shrub in Albemarle County, Virginia, tells us so-called invasive plants should not be removed if you truly want to save our disappearing insects. 

A native Eastern Tent caterpillar feeding upon an alien Multiflora Rose shrub in Albemarle County, Virginia, disproves Doug Tallamy’s contention that native plant-eating insects “should be able to eat only vegetation from plants with which they share an evolutionary history”.

People have been manipulated into believing alien plants serve no ecological purposes when, in fact, they very much do, in very many ways, for innumerable insect (and other) species. As the 19 ecologists wrote in their paper, “[A] valuable step would be for scientists and professionals in conservation to convey to the public that many alien species are useful”, and that “Natural resource agencies and organization should base their management plans on sound empirical evidence and not on unfounded claims of harm caused by nonnatives.”

Amen.