The AYLUS Dix Hills Branch partnered with Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve to help take out invasive species in the forest. The invasive vines strangled trees and made for extra unnecessary weight during storms, causing trees to come crashing down. Volunteers today worked to cut them down so they won’t grow as much during Spring. The vines kill forests as they cause breakage and allow fungi and insects to get into the trees, generally changing the whole ecology of the forest. The invasive species provide much less value than the native plants to the wildlife there, so they need to be taken down swiftly. Volunteers used different tools to remove the plants, with several invasive species such as porcelain berries, multiflora rose, asiatic bittersweet, etc. being among the ones cut out. Volunteers worked from 9:30 to 12:00 to help take out as many of the invasive plants as they could, leaving their remains on the ground as a bird habitat.
Volunteers: Bryan Fan (3 hrs), Ming Chen (3 hrs), Min Zheng (2.5 hrs), Jonathan Fan (2.5 hrs), and Ru Xue Jiang (2.5 hrs).
