Are These Plants Out of Place? A New Look at Invasive Species

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

When you hear “invasive plant,” you might picture an aggressive species taking over and harming the environment. But what if the way we think about invasive plants is part of the problem? Host Rachel Feltman chats with Mason Heberling, associate curator of botany at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, about why these plants are more complicated than we think. He’s one of the experts behind Uprooted: Plants Out of Place, a new exhibition that challenges the way we label and manage plant invasions. Recommended reading: Invasive Species Can Sometimes Help an Ecosystem “Lost in Translation: The Need for Updated Messaging Strategies in Invasion Biology Communication,” by Rachel A. Reeb and J. Mason Heberling, in Plants, People, Planet. Published online November 8, 2024 Email us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people.
0:34.4	For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
0:38.5	What do you think of when you hear the words, invasive plant?
0:42.5	According to some botanists, our mindset around invasives can do more harm than good.
0:53.3	Here to tell us more is Mason Heberling,
0:56.2	Associate curator of botany at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
1:00.8	He's one of the experts behind the museum's new exhibition,
1:04.1	uprooted plants out of place, which opened on March 22nd.
1:08.1	Thank you so much for joining us today.
1:09.9	Yeah, happy to be here.
1:12.4	What do you think is missing or lacking right now in the way we talk about invasive plants? And why is that
1:17.8	important to address? Yeah, I guess first and foremost people, I think, is largely absent out of
1:24.2	the invasive species conversation. And that is is how did species get where they are?
1:29.3	And who and what is responsible for that? That's a missing key.
	...

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