Ecological role

A dandelion is a common plant all over the world, especially in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It is a wellknown example of a plant that is considered a weed in some contexts (such as lawns) but not a weed in others (such as when it is used as a leaf vegetable or herbal medicine).

Weeds generally share similar adaptations that give them advantages and allow them to proliferate in disturbed environments where soil or natural vegetative cover has been damaged. Different types of habitat and disturbances will result in colonization by different communities of weed species.[4] Naturally occurring disturbed environments include dunes and other windswept areas with shifting soils, alluvial flood plains, river banks and deltas, and areas that are often burned. Since human agricultural practices often mimic these natural environments where weedy species have evolved, weeds have adapted to grow and proliferate in human-disturbed areas such as agricultural fields, lawns, roadsides, and construction sites. The weedy nature of these species often gives them an advantage over more desirable crop species because they often grow quickly and reproduce quickly, have seeds that persist in the soil seed bankfor many years, or have short lifespans with multiple generations in the same growing season. Perennial weeds often have underground stems that spread out under the soil surface or, like ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), have creeping stems that root and spread out over the ground.[5] Some plants become dominant when introduced into new environments because the animals which specialize in feeding on them are absent; in what is sometimes called the natural enemies hypothesis, plants freed from these specialist consumers may increase their competitive ability. In locations where predation and mutual competitive relationships no longer exist, some plants are able to increase allocation of resources into growth or reproduction. The weediness of some species that are introduced into new environments may be caused by their production of allelopathic chemicals which indigenous plants are not yet adapted to, a scenario sometimes called the "novel weapons hypothesis". These chemicals may limit the growth of established plants or the germination and growth of seeds and seedlings.[6][7]

Dispersal

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(May 2013) Many weed species have moved out of their natural geographic ranges and spread around the world in tandem with human migrations and commerce. Weed seeds are often collected and transported with crops after the harvesting of grains, so humans are a vector of transport as well as a producer of the disturbed environments to which weed species are well adapted, resulting in many weeds having a close association with human activities.[citation needed] Some weed species have been classified as noxious weeds by government authorities because, if left unchecked, they often compete with native or crop plants or cause harm to livestock. They are often foreign species accidentally or imprudently imported into a region where there are few natural controls to limit their population and spread.

Competition with cultivated and endemic plants

700 cattle that were killed overnight by a poisonous weed.[8]

Weeds may be unwanted for a number of reasons. An important one is that they interfere with food and fiber production in agriculture, wherein they must be controlled in order to prevent lost or diminished crop yields. Other important reasons are that they interfere with other cosmetic, decorative, or recreational goals, such as in lawns, landscape architecture,playing fields, and golf courses. Similarly, they can be of concern for environmental reasons whereby introduced species out-compete for resources or space with desired endemic plants. For all these reasons; horticulture, both functional and cosmetic, and environmental, - weeds interfere by:

competing with the desired plants for the resources that a plant typically needs, namely, direct sunlight, soil nutrients, water, and (to a lesser extent) space for growth; providing hosts and vectors for plant pathogens, giving them greater opportunity to infect and degrade the quality of the desired plants; providing food or shelter for animal pests such as seed-eating birds and Tephritid fruit flies that otherwise could hardly survive seasonal shortages;[9]

offering irritation to the skin or digestive tracts of people or animals, either physical irritation via thorns, prickles, or burs, or chemical irritation via natural poisons or irritants in the weed (for example, the poisons found in Nerium species);[10] causing root damage to engineering works such as drains, road surfaces, and foundations,[11] blocking streams and rivulets.[12]

In weed ecology some authorities speak of the relationship between "the three Ps": plant, place, perception. These have been very variously defined, but the weed traits listed by H.G. Baker are widely cited.[13][14] Weeds have long been a concern, perhaps as long as humans have cultivated plants. They are mentioned in various historic texts, such as a Shakespearean sonnet: "To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: / But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, / The soil is this, that thou dost common grow."[15]

Benefits of weed species

See also: companion plant, beneficial weed, List of beneficial weeds, and list of edible flowers
"What would the world be, once bereft, of wet and wildness? Let them be left. O let them be left; wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet." -- Gerard Manley Hopkins' poemInversnaid

While the term "weed" generally has a negative connotation, many plants known as weeds can have beneficial properties. A number of weeds, such as the dandelion (Taraxacum), are edible, and their leaves or roots may be used for food or herbal medicine. Burdock is common over much of the world, and is sometimes used to make soup and medicine in East Asia.[citation needed] Some weeds attract beneficial insects, which in turn can protect crops from harmful pests. Weeds can also prevent pest insects from finding a crop, because their presence disrupts the incidence of positive cues which pests use to locate their food. Weeds may also act as a "living mulch", providing ground cover that reduces moisture loss and prevents erosion. Weeds may also improve soil fertility; dandelions, for example, bring up nutrients like calcium and nitrogen from deep in the soil with their tap root, and clover hosts nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, fertilizing the soil directly. The dandelion is also one of several species which break up hardpan in overly cultivated fields, helping crops grow deeper root systems. Some garden flowers originated as weeds in cultivated fields and have been selectively bred for their gardenworthy flowers or foliage. An example of a crop weed that is grown in gardens is the corncockle, (Agrostemma githago), which was a common weed in European wheat fields, but is now sometimes grown as a garden plant.[16]

Some people have appreciated weeds for their tenacity, their wildness and even the work and connection to nature they provide. AsChristopher Lloyd wrote in The Well-Tempered Garden "Many gardeners will agree that hand-weeding is not the terrible drudgery that it is often made out to be. Some people find in it a kind of soothing monotony. It leaves their minds free to develop the plot for their next novel or to perfect the brilliant repartee with which they should have encountered a relative's latest example of unreasonableness."[17] Shunryu Suzuki, the Zen master, is credited with proclaiming, "For Zen students, a weed is a treasure."

Weeds as adaptable species

"We've got to be one of the most bomb-proof species on the planet." paleontologist David Jablonsky[2]

An alternate definition often used by biologists is any species, not just plants, that can quickly adapt to any environment.[2] Some traits of weedy species are the ability to reproduce quickly, disperse widely, live in a variety of habitats, establish a population in strange places, succeed in disturbed ecosystems and resist eradication once established. Such species often do well in human-dominated environments as other species are not able to adapt. Common examples include the common pigeon, brown rat and the raccoon. Other weedy species have been able to expand their range without actually living in human environments, as human activity has damaged the ecosystems of other species. These include the coyote, the white-tailed deer and the brown headed cowbird.[2] In response to the idea that humans may face extinction due to environmental degradation, paleontologist David Jablonsky counters by arguing that humans are a weed species. Like other weedy species, humans are widely dispersed in a wide variety of environments, and are highly unlikely to go extinct no matter how much damage the environment faces.[2]

Role in mass extinctions

A mass extinction is generally caused by some abrupt disruption to the entire planet's environment. This results in major changes in habitat worldwide, and most endemic species, specially adapted to a single habitat, cannot survive in the new habitats. Thus only weedy species survive, and they dominate the planet in the immediate aftermath. Cockroaches, for example, have survived several mass extinctions. The current Holocene extinction event, then, could lead to a planet inhabited entirely by what are known today as weeds. The fossil record indicates that after mass extinctions, a weed-dominated planet persists for five to ten million years before life re-diversifies