India, Oct. 20 -- We all love a quick fix. A leaking pipe gets taped up, a cluttered room gets shoved into a closet, and the problem seems solved. But quick fixes often have consequences that can be seen years later, sometimes on a larger scale. Nature offers us many examples. A paper by Spellman and Wurtz shows how a plant formerly used along roads is linked to more deaths among young native plants on river floodplains.

Imagine a new highway through Alaska. The soil on either side is loose and untilled and can be washed away by rain. So crews plant something that can keep the soil in place. According to the USDA Forest Service Fire Effects Information System, sweetclover likely was introduced in Alaska in 1916 during roadside revegetati...