Award-winning science journalist seeks MSU invasive species expertise
Contact: Vanessa Beeson
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Julia Rosen, a journalist whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Science, and The Atlantic, recently visited Mississippi State to study cogongrass, an invasive plant species affecting southeastern forest ecosystems. Rosen’s visit was in preparation for her upcoming book “Grassroots,” which examines the history of humanity’s relationship with grass.
“Grass is an interesting lens to approach questions I’ve thought about for a long time: How do we think about nature and our place in it? How do we deal with repercussions of choices that have been made in the past, which cogongrass is the perfect example of,” said Rosen, who has explored the intersection of western culture and nature throughout her career.
While researching different species for the book’s chapter on invasive grasses, Rosen sought to include a weed impacting the southeastern U.S.
“Cogongrass captures many of the reasons why invasive grasses are such a problem. The early part of my book is why grass is this amazing plant and how it became such a huge part of the Earth’s ecosystems, and the invasive species chapter examines the flipside of that—a lot of the reasons grass is an amazing plant also make it extremely invasive.”
Rosen visited cogongrass stands at the R.R. Foil Plant Science Research Center in Starkville and De Soto National Forest in Brooklyn, Mississippi, with Ashley Schulz, assistant professor, and Elizabeth Esser, doctoral student, in the Department of Forestry.
Esser’s doctoral research in the MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center focuses on the invasive threat. The Cedarburg, Wisconsin, native understands the danger of invasive species firsthand. Growing up, she watched an eventual death of 10 acres of ash trees by the invasive emerald ash borer—a beetle—on her family’s forestland. This spurred a passion for ecology and genetics, which she double majored in at the University of Georgia.
“I learned about MSU’s doctoral opportunity to study cogongrass through Dr. Rima Lucardi, research ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service in Athens, who also set up this visit with Julia,” Esser said.
Esser explained that cogongrass threatens southern forests by forming dense mats that prevent native plant growth, disrupt ecosystems and endanger wildlife like the gopher tortoise. Its hotter-burning properties complicate fire-dominant landscapes, while current multiyear herbicide treatments remain unsustainable. Her work aims to tackle critical questions about how it spreads and whether it can be treated using its own chemical properties, a process known as autotoxicity.
“Cogongrass poses a major threat to forest regeneration and biodiversity,” Esser said. “Our goal is to better understand the genetic variation in different populations, which could reveal clues about its spread and susceptibility to treatments. We’re also investigating whether we can harness the plant's own chemistry to fight it. We hope this work will help find more targeted, effective and environmentally conscious methods of control.”
In addition to Schulz and Esser, Rosen met with Erika Womack-Peoples, state chemist and biochemistry associate research professor; Gary Ervin, biological sciences professor; and John Byrd, plant and soil sciences extension and research professor, to gain their perspectives on the invasive species while visiting MSU.
Rosen’s book “Grassroots: Our Long, Tangled Relationship with the World’s Most Remarkable Plant” is set to be published by Ecco, an imprint of Harper Collins, in 2026. It is supported by a book grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
For more information on the Department of Forestry in MSU’s College of Forest Resources, visit www.forestry.msstate.edu. For more information on the MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center, visit www.fwrc.msstate.edu.
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