Cheese pie explainer
Editor|Cheesepie explainer
In recent years, there has been continuous news of biological invasions in the United States, whether it is Asian carp or African snails, which has caused difficult problems for local residents.
In addition to animals, there is also a plant that can "run around the world" has also settled in the United States, not only multiplying and seizing the living space of native plants, but also blocking roads and flooding houses, and the United States has nothing to do about it.
But the plant not only failed to flood in China, but even survived to adulthood before it was killed by a single move.
What kind of plant is this? Why is it that the United States is flooded and killed by one move when it reaches China?
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●○ Biological invasion of the United States ○●
Biological invasion is a difficult problem facing the world, biological exchange with the development of the world economy has also matured, and countries have also improved their economic strength by virtue of biological exchanges.
It is more well-known as the mainland giant panda rental, which is cute and only unique to China, and the giant panda is the "top stream" in the world.
In order to be able to see the panda, many countries have signed panda rental contracts with China, and they will build panda houses at the cost of manpower and material resources.
Star animals like pandas attract worldwide attention for their every move, but some humble species also sneak into exotic lands with people's contacts.
Creatures that can cross oceans and take root in unfamiliar areas basically have one thing in common: the local environment is suitable for growth and lacks natural predators.
Once strange creatures take root in such places, they will multiply at an alarming rate, quickly encroaching on the living space of native creatures, and even causing inconvenience to local residents, this phenomenon is called biological invasion.
Most of the biological invasion phenomena exist in the animal kingdom, after all, animals can subjectively choose the environment suitable for them, and plants changing the environment are more like "smoking blind boxes".
If the seeds of plants go to a strange place, the environment is not suitable for survival, and they cannot walk away like animals.
But there are still some plants with tenacious vitality, when they go to unfamiliar places, they will try to adapt to the local environment, and then quickly occupy the territory to multiply and destroy the local biological chain, which is overwhelming.
The news of biological invasions in the United States has become common, but the previous news has basically reported various animal invasions in the United States, and there is a plant invasion called tumbleweed, which is more headache for Americans than other animal invasions.
Residents of the central United States are so disturbed that they sometimes open their doors in the morning to see tumbleweeds piled up on the entire road and even their yards.
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●○What exactly is tumbleweed○●
Tumbleweed, known by its scientific name as Russian spiny sapong, is an annual herb mainly found in Eurasia, usually growing in arid Gobi and along inaccessible roads.
The vitality of the Russian spiny sapong is extremely tenacious, and the arid Gobi does not rain all year round, it will put away its roots and curl up into a ball and move with the wind.
When it rolls to a suitable place, the Russian spiny sapong will re-sprout and start living in a new place, which is the origin of its name "tumbleweed".
The tenacious vitality of tumbleweeds is simply not comparable to plants, and the seeds of tumbleweeds can be spread as long as there is wind, and they do not need the assistance of other animals at all.
Not only that, tumbleweeds also have an amazing "internal protection" system, tumbleweeds' organs can absorb a lot of light and carbon dioxide, and the roots can spread out like umbrellas to absorb nutrients 50 cm underground.
When tumbleweeds reach their prime, hard synapses grow on the surface to protect the branches, and even the leaves are filamentous so that they can move with the wind.
Tumbleweed can spread with the wind, the most critical point is that it contains almost no water seeds, but even such seeds, the germination rate and survival rate are still much higher than the seeds of ordinary plants.
Experts have collected some tumbleweed seeds in the field and brought them back for study, and found that the seeds contained less than five percent water.
Dried seeds can survive more time in the wild, and tumbleweed-dried seeds are bitter and astringent, which minimizes the risk of being eaten by small animals.
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●○Causes and current situation of flooding○●
Tumbleweeds were originally native to Eurasia, and the most widespread reason for the existence of the United States is the scourge of immigration and import and export trade in the 18th century.
Around the seventies and eighties of the 18th century, many Russians immigrated to the central and western United States.
After these immigrants arrived in the United States, it took a long time to adapt to both diet and clothing, so in the early days of immigration, they often imported flaxseed from China that could be both eaten and grown as a raw material for clothing.
But once the workers loading flaxseeds accidentally loaded the unscreened flaxseeds into the car, and they were mixed with tumbleweed seeds.
Flaxseeds were planted in the United States to await harvest along with tumbleweeds, which were very inconspicuous when they sprouted but soon grew into large clumps.
Americans at the time didn't know what the plant was, but the tender, large clumps of tumbleweed could be used as fodder on farms with simple processing.
This can make the locals happy, after all, tumbleweed saves them a lot of feed money, but it doesn't take long for them to find out that something is not right.
The local people processed almost all the tumbleweeds they could see into feed, but the livestock were poisoned to varying degrees after eating for a period of time.
It was soon realized that tumbleweeds were not suitable for feeding animals, so they had to discard all the feed, and in the following years tumbleweeds began to spread and grow locally.
Most of the United States is plains, tumbleweeds spread very quickly, and coupled with the absence of natural predators, tumbleweeds quickly flooded.
As soon as the Americans saw this situation, they immediately began to act, according to their habits, weeding is to burn with fire, but tumbleweed does not eat this set.
Tumbleweed is originally a plant that grows in the arid Gobi, the water content is naturally relatively low, coupled with the large volume, once ignited, it is a raging fire.
What's more frightening is that once the tumbleweed burns, it will "take off", not only can not be burned out, but also will quickly roll to other places with seeds, even comparable to the speed of a moving car.
The Americans had no choice but to let the tumbleweed develop, and over the next decade, tumbleweed expanded its territory, occupying nearly 100,000 square kilometers of the western United States.
Then tumbleweeds spread to California and Canada at an alarming rate, and by the time Americans realized the great danger of tumbleweeds, it was too late to eradicate them.
Although the Americans have always stopped the spread of tumbleweeds, they can only manage where they appear, and they cannot stop their growth and transfer.
In 2018, California encountered a rare gust of wind, which soared to 113 kilometers per hour, and this wind also completely changed the lives of residents.
From a distance, they saw the wind carrying a large number of round things whistling towards the town, and the residents immediately hid in the house and waited until the wind was less windy to come out and check.
The round ball brought by the fierce wind is the tumbleweed, and the wind does not stop, the tumbleweed will roll from afar, and stop when it encounters the obstacles of the town.
More and more tumbleweeds brought by the strong winds piled up on the roads of the town, and more than a hundred houses were flooded by tumbleweeds.
People struggled to clean up the tumbleweeds, but as soon as the wind blew, there were new troubles, and since then the townspeople have not had a few days to settle down, and they always have to clean the tumbleweeds.
The small-town encounter was not unique, as tumbleweeds raged and even Washington state was hit by tumbleweeds, forcing vehicles on the road to stop and traffic paralyzed.
When the police arrived at the scene to deal with it, the tumbleweeds had piled up, and the highest point was already 9 meters, like a huge barricade.
The clean-up was difficult because the tumbleweeds on the road were not only numerous, but each one was covered with dense gradations, which could stab workers if they were not careful.
Tumbleweed has had a serious impact on the lives of residents, and some writers have called tumbleweed "poisonous dog grass" and "poor acid grass", which shows the depth of disgust for it.
Authorities have also tried to remove it, but herbicides and incineration have had little effect, and tumbleweeds continue to affect American lives to this day.
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●○Chinese tumbleweed○●
Tumbleweed is an inaccessible invasive plant in the United States, and all kinds of methods have not been able to eliminate it, but in China, tumbleweed is difficult to grow to adulthood.
Tumbleweed is found in small amounts in Xinjiang, Tibet and parts of Inner Mongolia, but these tumbleweeds have no tendency to flood.
Because the places where tumbleweeds live on the mainland are basically in the northwest region, which are mainly plateaus and basins, which are completely different from the flat terrain of the United States.
The transmission of tumbleweeds depends on the wind, but no matter how fierce the wind reaches here, it must be extinguished, and it is impossible to spread the seeds on a large scale.
In deserts and Gobi, where plants are scarce, tenacious plants such as tumbleweeds have naturally become one of the few foods for small animals.
There are many insects and small animals in Xinjiang, most of which feed on plant seeds, although tumbleweed seeds do not taste good, but insects can still be satisfied.
Even if the seeds are not eaten, the surviving tumbleweeds will be killed by the locals, and the lethal means to make it difficult to survive to adulthood is to "eat".
Some farmers in Xinjiang pick tumbleweeds from their youth, process them to remove the toxicity, and serve them as a delicacy, and even tumbleweeds that barely survive to the prime of life can be used for medicine or soup.
●○End ○●
In general, tumbleweeds are rampant in the United States, but in China it is difficult to even live to adulthood because tumbleweeds have unique growing conditions in the United States and the racial advantage of having no natural enemies.
But when China's advantages in both the environment and natural enemies no longer exist, it will naturally not be as widespread as the United States.
Although tumbleweeds are not flooding China now, we must always be vigilant against biological invasions, and we must not easily introduce unknown creatures, and it is difficult to recover them once a flood occurs.
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