Invasive Species Science Articles

Plants and animals are expanding their ranges farther and faster these days than ever before in the planet's history.

Only a handful of factors always influence whether a plant or animal successfully moves into territory outside its native range.

The biggest influence on how many destructive exotic species a country has acquired is the amount of international trade it's involved in.

Gardeners and pet owners might inadvertently release new invasive species into the environment, an investigation of plant and pet stores discovers.

Invasive Animals

Huge gains have been made over the last twenty years in stopping invasive rats and mice from destroying island biodiversity.

For the first time, seal salamanders were discovered in 2003 on the Ozark Plateau in northwest Arkansas.

Common wall lizards, native to Europe, now thrive abundantly on southern Vancouver Island after a few were let loose at west Sannich in 1970.

Since 1970, eastern grey squirrels have expanded their turf in British Columbia from a few hectares in Stanley Park to throughout the Lower Mainland, including Langley and Maple Ridge.

Invasive Plants

A surprisingly large quantity and variety of plant seeds are getting carried substantial distances by white-tailed deer.

North America's plant life is becoming increasingly uniform throughout the continent.

Biologists probing the question of why some exotic plants can quickly populate a continent have uncovered another characteristic of successful invaders.

Chinese tallow trees, after being introduced to the southern United States, have evolved in North America to outgrow tallow trees in their native Asian habitat.

Scientists have dubbed the DNA complement of fountain grass a "super-genotype" because the genes function like no others yet encountered.

Invasive Aquatic Species

People dumping their pet fish into local waterways could introduce yet another exotic species into the Great Lakes watershed.

Invasive marine organisms now inhabit nearly all coastal areas.

Data now confirm that walleye stocks plummet after rainbow smelt move into a lake.

A once rare and innocuous freshwater alga seems to have recently mutated into an amazing menace.

Out of the 3072 reported incidents of fish getting loose into a foreign ecosystem, 60% have founded wild populations.

Aquarium enthusiasts have often marvelled at the voracious and undiscriminating appetites of their pet apple snails.

Non-native fish are already implicated in the extinctions of five fish species in Canada and they threaten the continued existence of many others.

Analysis of ballast water recently carried by ships into the Great Lakes indicates that more exotic species will likely invade the freshwater ecosystem.

Scientists warn that an aggressive sea squirt could wreak ecological havoc to marine environments and economically harm the aquaculture and fishing industries.

It's taken less than thirty years for chinook salmon that were let loose in South America to establish spawning runs along 1500 kilometres of the South Pacific coast.

Insects

The assortment of ladybug species living in North America has shifted dramatically in the last 20 years.

Eastern hemlock trees might be gone from New England forests by the end of the century, thanks to an introduced insect and warming climate.

Instead of one invasive insect out-competing the other, as researchers expected, hemlock woolly adelgid appears to be helping the elongate hemlock scale infest trees in the northeastern United States.

Two cutworm moth species, recently introduced to British Columbia from Eurasia, are about to become economic pests throughout the province.

Invasive Diseases

West Nile Virus has decimated populations of some North American bird species, while sparing others.

A fungus introduced from Europe is well on its way to rendering whitebark pine trees extinct in some North American national parks, scientists warn.