31 dogs learned to sniff out invasive plants

Scientists in Leipzig have trained 31 dogs and their owners to sniff out invasive plants, and the teams located target species in the wild with 75% accuracy. The feasibility study, published in PLOS One, ran from 2021 to 2023 and focused on three problem plants, among them Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed. Of the 12 teams that completed the field test, 11 passed. Invasive species are a leading cause of biodiversity loss worldwide, and early detection has long been costly and slow. Dr. Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research led the work, which recruited volunteer handlers as citizen scientists. "What we find particularly exciting is the opportunity to turn something people already love doing, spending time outdoors with their dogs, into a meaningful contribution to biodiversity conservation," she said. The dogs, it turns out, can switch from sniffing out scat to sniffing out plants without much fuss. They are built for this.