Honeysuckle is killing forests and ivy is helping, especially in the northeast/midwest. Kill all that shit, help stop it from spreading. And try to volunteer for local groups that are clearing invasive species. It’s pretty amazing seeing a forest before and after invasive species have been removed.
I was on a biology field study trip once and my professor turned to us while we were heading down a trail in a national park and said “Okay so this is technically illegal, but we’re going to go over there and rip up a bunch of plants because they’re invasive species”. Cool dude, he was also warning about the insect die off like 10 years before it happened.
Some profs are uber cool. Others are reactionary dickheads. Glad your prof was the former.
Environmental biology professors are almost always cool. They’re always weird and interesting.
He also once had a student go ahead and plant a tootsie roll molded to look like scat on a rock so that we could come upon it and watch him take a bite to “determine what kind of animal it was from”.
Gotta love the dedication to the bit.