EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Explanation:  This looks like a quintessential tropical island paradise -- a beautiful bay on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean Sea.

Over half of St. John is administered as a national park and biosphere reserve, and is accessible only by boat from other islands, mostly from nearby St. Thomas.  It has coral reefs, numerous fishes, and white beaches of coconut palms, seagrape, and over 800 plant species, and is sought by birders. 

But this is no pristine landscape.  It has been influenced by centuries of occupation, dating back at least to Pre-Columbian Amerindians.  In the 17th century, the Virgin Islands were split into occupation by English and Danish.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Danish Colonial Sugar Plantations dominated parts of the island and ruins of the plantations still stand in which African slavery flourished.  Slavery was abolished there in 1848 and the U.S. purchased the Danish portion of the islands in 1917. 

Ruins of the Annaberg Sugar Mill
at Leinster Bay

Extensive second-growth forest still dominates much of the island.  Settlers introduced goats, sheep, and wild hogs -- none of which is native to the islands -- which grew in numbers and have had adverse impacts on the native flora.  The U.S. National Park Service plans to reduce numbers of the goats and sheep and of the hogs.  

Not virgin forest, much of the vegetation on St. John has regenerated from cutting and burning for settlements and use for sugar plantations.

Invaders do abound on St. John.

Here are seen the colorful flowers and opposite leaves of one of the scourges of the tropics, lantana (Lantana camera), an invasive weed probably introduced as an ornamental.